Page 166 - CW E-Magazine (26-9-2023)

News from Abroad

TRANSPORTATION DEMAND

OCI Global to double green methanol capacity in US

Dutch company, OCI Global, is to station build-out, and while marine
double its green methanol production demand has been growing at a very fast
capacity in the US to 400-ktpa ahead pace, we have yet to see the impact of
of 2025. According to the company, retrofits, which should end up being a
demand for green methanol from larger segment than new-builds,” he
high-emissions industries will grow by added.
more than 6-mt by 2028.
In July, shipping giant AP Moller
The green methanol will come Maersk completed the maiden voyage
from a mix of renewable feedstocks of the first green methanol-powered
including renewable natural gas OCI plans to produce the biogas container vessel. OCI provided the fuel
(RNG), green hydrogen and other from a decomposing landfill, but the for the ship’s journey from Korea to
over-the-fence feedstock partnerships, company is yet to secure waste and Denmark.
according to OCI. The product will development rights from the City of
principally be used as a fuel blend in Beaumont offices. This facility will be The global shipping industry
place of petrol, used for shipping and OCI’s first upstream RNG facility, with accounts for around 3% of global
heavy industry. fabrication of the gas beginning in the greenhouse gas emissions.
first quarter of 2025.
The scale-up at OCI’s facility in “We are seeing encouraging signs
Beaumont, Texas, US, will include “Methanol is the transportation with regulatory support for both ammo-
entering into new supply agreements for sector’s most viable solution and the nia and methanol in shipping, such as
RNG exceeding 15,000-mmBtu per easiest way to transport and use renew- the EU’s FuelEU maritime regulation
day. RNG, or biogas, is produced from able hydrogen today,” said Mr. Bashir and the latest IMO strategy bolster-
the decomposition of organic matter. Lebada, CEO, OCI Methanol/HyFuels, ing the value of low carbon and green
It can be transported and used in much in a statement. “We are seeing increas- methanol and ammonia relative to fos-
the same way as conventional natural ing pull from road fuel markets due to sil fuels,” said Mr. Ahmed El-Hoshy,
gas. the delay in EV adoption and charging CEO, OCI, in a statement.

DECARBONISATION
BASF, Sabic and Linde move closer to completing

demo electricity-based steam cracker furnace

The joint project between BASF, heating concepts for olefin production, processes, can potentially reduce CO
2
Sabic, and Linde to build the world’s which will be tested at the plant in the emissions by at least 90% compared to
first electrically heated steam cracker future, require a total of 6-MW of conventional technologies. The demon-
furnaces hit an important milestone renewable energy. The transformers stration plant will be fully integrated
recently with the installation of the convert current to the voltage required into one of the existing steam crackers
last transformers for the demonstration at the plant. There are nine transformers at BASF’s Verbund site in Ludwigshafen,
plant. This is one of the final and most in total, and through each of them flows Germany.
crucial steps of the construction and has several thousand amperes of current.
taken place about a year after construc- The German Ministry for Economic
tion started. Thanks to the novel heating con- Affairs and Climate Protection is spon-
cepts, and by using electricity from soring the project with €14.8-mn as part
Completion is scheduled for the renewable sources instead of natural gas, of the “Decarbonisation in Industry”
end of 2023, followed by a stepwise electric steam cracker furnaces, one of funding programme, financed by the
commissioning. The electricity-based the most energy-intensive production European Union’s NextGenerationEU fund.

166 Chemical Weekly September 26, 2023

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