Business update: Plants and projects

Liquid Production Facility Launched

Construction and startup of the Southern Air Products (Guangzhou) Ltd. liquid production facility has been completed in Guangdong Province, China. Said to be the largest of its kind, the stand-alone plant supplies many manufacturers in the region. Its capacity

Ethanol Plant Increases Capacity

High Plains Corp. (Wichita, KS) has completed improvements at its ethanol plant in York, NE, that will increase the facility's total capacity by about onethird, to 50 million gal/yr. In addition to the higher capacity, the changes reduce wastewater discharges by over 50%, and significantly cut the per-gallon-of-product natural gas usage.

Air Sepration Unit for Methanol Plant Slated

Caribbean Industrial Gases Unlimited (CIG; Point Lisas, Trinidad), an affiliate of Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (Lehigh Valley, PA), will construct an air separation unit in the Caribbean Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Construction will begin in January 2002 and start-up is targeted for September 2003. The facility will provide over 2,800 m.t./d of oxygen and 1,000 m.t./d of nitrogen, as well as instrument air, to the 1.7 million ton/d Atlas methanol plant annouced recently by Methanex Corp. and BP.

Aluminum Recycling Plant Planned

Hydro Aluminum Metal Products - North America, a division of Norsk Hydro, will build a state-of-the-art aluminum recycling plant in Commerce, TX, the company's second such facility in the U.S. It will have a capacity of 90,000 m.t./yr of primary quality aluminum from scrap. Construction was to start this fall, and the plant is scheduled to begin operation in November 2002.

Diesel Desulfurization Unit to be Installed

Following the successful testing of two prototype diesel desulfurization units, SulphCo Inc. (Reno, NV) plans to install a larger, 2,000-3,000-bbl/d, system at the Iplom petroleum refinery in Genoa, Italy. Operation is expected to begin before year-end.

Corn-to-Ethanol Plant Planned

Lurgi PSI will deliver a turnkey plant to Adkins Energy LLC (Lena, IL) that will process 15.4 million bu/yr of corn and produce 40 million gal/yr of fuel ethanol. Construction has begun and is scheduled for completion in late 2002.

Fluidized-Bed Reactors Selected for Remediation Project

Envirogen, Inc. (Lawrenceville, NJ) will supply fluidized-bed reactor (FBR) systems for groundwater remediation at two U.S. Dept. of Defense sites - an Army installation in California and a Navy facility in Texas. Envirogen's proprietary FBR technology uses specialized microorganisms attached to fluidized media contained in a biological reactor to degrade contaminants as groundwater is pumped through the system.

Gas-To-Liquids Project Stated

Foster Wheeler Energy Ltd. (Hamilton, Bermuda) has received a front-end engineering and design contract for a gas-to-liquids (GTL) project in Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar. The GTL facility will produce 24,000 bbl/d of fuel, 9,000 bbl/d of naphtha and 1,000 bbl/d of liquefied petroleum gas from a 330 million std. ft3/d lean natural gas supply.