Sections
Poll: Budget distortion
Do you support the moves by Presidency through the Supreme Court to prevent the National Assembly from distorting 2009 budget?
Vaswanis sign deal for world’s largest methanol plant in Nigeria
Font size:
Mohan Vaswani
Viva Methanol Limited, a Nigerian subsidiary of Eurochem Corporation, has signed a major technology deal to establish the world’s largest methanol plant within the Lagos Free Trade Zone to produce olefins.
The chairman of Viva Methanol Limited, Mohan Vaswani, said that “with 10,000 metric tons of methanol produced per day, this will be the largest methanol production facility in the world, and UOP technology will help us convert this methanol to high-value olefins to support growing plastics demand.”
“Methanol-to-olefins technology will allow us to use natural gas available in Nigeria and is more cost effective than traditional olefin production from crude oil derived feed stocks”, he added.
UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, will provide technology licence, basic engineering, catalyst, adsorbents, specialty equipment, and technical support as the new plant is expected to come online in 2012.
The new facility will produce 1.3 million metric tons of ethylene and propylene annually for the production of polyethylene and polypropylene, which are used in the production of plastics for packaging, pipes, carpeting, films and other products.
Jim D’Auria, Director of UOP’s petrochemicals business expressed his belief in the substantial progress that Viva Methanol Limited has made towards the implementation of the project.
Experts in petrochemicals say the natural gas to olefin route will provide a significant competitive edge to petrochemicals producers.
It would be recalled that UOP completed the basic engineering design for an earlier version of this project in 2003, but the project will now take advantage of the latest advances in methanol, methanol-to-olefins, and olefin cracking technologies to achieve significantly greater economies of scale and unparalleled yields and efficiencies with this facility.
Methanol, also known as methyl alcohol, carbinol, wood alcohol, wood naphtha or wood spirits, is a chemical compound with chemical formula CH3OH (often abbreviated MeOH). It is the simplest alcohol, and is a light, volatile, colourless, flammable, poisonous liquid with a distinctive odor that is somewhat milder and sweeter than ethanol (ethyl alcohol). At room temperature it is a polar liquid and is used as an antifreeze, solvent, fuel, and as a denaturant for ethyl alcohol. It is also used for producing biodiesel via transesterification reaction.
Methanol is produced naturally in the anaerobic metabolism of many varieties of bacteria. As a result, there is a small fraction of methanol vapour in the atmosphere. Over the course of several days, atmospheric methanol is oxidized by oxygen with the help of sunlight to carbon dioxide and water.
Methanol burns in air forming carbon dioxide and water. A methanol flame is almost colourless, causing an additional safety hazard around open methanol flames.
Because of its poisonous properties, methanol is frequently used as a denaturant additive for ethanol manufactured for industrial uses— this addition of a poison economically exempts industrial ethanol from the rather significant ‘liquor’ taxes that would otherwise be levied as it is the essence of all potable alcoholic beverages.
“Methanol-to-olefins technology will allow us to use natural gas available in Nigeria and is more cost effective than traditional olefin production from crude oil derived feed stocks”, he added.
UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, will provide technology licence, basic engineering, catalyst, adsorbents, specialty equipment, and technical support as the new plant is expected to come online in 2012.
The new facility will produce 1.3 million metric tons of ethylene and propylene annually for the production of polyethylene and polypropylene, which are used in the production of plastics for packaging, pipes, carpeting, films and other products.
Jim D’Auria, Director of UOP’s petrochemicals business expressed his belief in the substantial progress that Viva Methanol Limited has made towards the implementation of the project.
Experts in petrochemicals say the natural gas to olefin route will provide a significant competitive edge to petrochemicals producers.
It would be recalled that UOP completed the basic engineering design for an earlier version of this project in 2003, but the project will now take advantage of the latest advances in methanol, methanol-to-olefins, and olefin cracking technologies to achieve significantly greater economies of scale and unparalleled yields and efficiencies with this facility.
Methanol, also known as methyl alcohol, carbinol, wood alcohol, wood naphtha or wood spirits, is a chemical compound with chemical formula CH3OH (often abbreviated MeOH). It is the simplest alcohol, and is a light, volatile, colourless, flammable, poisonous liquid with a distinctive odor that is somewhat milder and sweeter than ethanol (ethyl alcohol). At room temperature it is a polar liquid and is used as an antifreeze, solvent, fuel, and as a denaturant for ethyl alcohol. It is also used for producing biodiesel via transesterification reaction.
Methanol is produced naturally in the anaerobic metabolism of many varieties of bacteria. As a result, there is a small fraction of methanol vapour in the atmosphere. Over the course of several days, atmospheric methanol is oxidized by oxygen with the help of sunlight to carbon dioxide and water.
Methanol burns in air forming carbon dioxide and water. A methanol flame is almost colourless, causing an additional safety hazard around open methanol flames.
Because of its poisonous properties, methanol is frequently used as a denaturant additive for ethanol manufactured for industrial uses— this addition of a poison economically exempts industrial ethanol from the rather significant ‘liquor’ taxes that would otherwise be levied as it is the essence of all potable alcoholic beverages.
Add to:
del.icio.us |
Digg
del.icio.us |
Digg
Email to a friend
Print version
Plain textRate this article
Comments ( posted):
Post your comment