Eastman Chemical Co. continues to move ahead with its Beaumont, Texas, petroleum coke gasification project, despite cuts in other projects at the company. Among other things, the gasification plant would help run idled anhydrous ammonia (255,000 st/y) and methanol (255 million gallons per year) units, which Eastman earlier bought from Terra Industries Inc. (GM Oct. 8, 2007, p. 1).
Eastman Chairman and CEO Brian Ferguson recently told analysts one of the fundamentals the company continues to hold is that there will be a significant spread between liquid and solid hydrocarbons for many years in the future. Ferguson believes the spread can be exploited through industrial gasification. While the spread has compressed during the current economic recession, Ferguson says the company is confident that all the economic and political trends support the continued expansion of the spread.
“We expect natural gas prices to rise from where they are today driven by the demands of new power generation, recovering industrial use, and the implementation of global climate change policies in the U.S. and abroad,” said Ferguson. “At the same time, we see petcoke prices declining from where they are today as petcoke supply increases and declining coal prices pressure petcoke.”
Ferguson expects the front-end engineering and design (FEED) process on the project to be completed this summer. Still, this is behind the schedule given last summer, which called for the FEED to be complete by the end of 2008 (GM June 16, 2008). At that time, the company said it expected the project to be online in 2011. The company says it continues to work to complete input and output contracts for the project.
Ferguson said the project was chosen by the U.S. Department of Energy as one of the 16 finalists out of 143 applicants in 2007 for a loan guarantee program. Eastman completed its full application two months ago and should know in the second half if it gets the guarantee. If successful, Ferguson said this would eliminate dependence on the commercial bank market.
DOE announced Feb. 12 that it is preparing an environmental impact statement (EIS) for the project, according to Pike & Fischer’s FR Today. The plant would be sited on a 417 acre tract, 52 acres of which include wetlands and floodplains. Construction laydown and parking are expected to take about 150 acres.
The facility would utilize gasification technology, with petcoke as the feedstock to produce synthesis gas (a mixture of carbon monoxide [CO] and hydrogen) and molten sulfur. The facility would produce 150 billion standard cubic feet of syngas and 150,000 tons of sulfur per year. A portion of the syngas would be used to produce 261 million standard cubic feet of H2 per year. Cleaning of the raw syngas would be done using Rectisol® Acid Gas Removal technology licensed from Lurgi, and would produce 5.4 million tons of CO2 per year.
Most of the CO2 produced from clean-up of the raw syngas would be captured and transferred from the facility via a newly constructed pipeline spur (no longer than two miles) to a new pipeline for use in the enhanced oil recovery. Less than 12 percent of the CO2 would be vented, according to expectations. The majority of the H2 would be sold to the petroleum refining industry via a newly constructed pipeline. The balance of the syngas and a portion of H2 would be piped to nearby existing plants by a new 1.5 mile pipeline to produce methanol and anhydrous ammonia, which would either be sold or used by Eastman.
The plant would use up to 2.4 million tons of petcoke, 120,000 tons of fluxant (a blend of sand and stone), and 2.4 million of oxygen per year. Coal could be used as an alternative feedstock.
Eastman expects the peak workforce for construction to be 2,000-2,500, with 250 to work at the plant once it is completed.
DOE is currently seeking public input to define the scope of the EIS. Scoping comments may be postmarked March 20, 2009, and sent to Sharon R. Thomas, Loan Guarantee Program Office (CF-1.3), U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20585. A public scoping meeting will be held at the Beaumont Civic Center Complex March 5 between 5:00-9:00 p.m.