Yara International and BASF Group have agreed to build a world-scale ammonia plant at BASF’s site in Freeport, Texas. The plant will use hydrogen as raw material, reducing capital expenditures (capex), maintenance and carbon dioxide emissions significantly.
The ammonia plant will be owned 68 percent by Yara and 32 percent by BASF and located on BASF’s site in Freeport. The plant will have a capacity of about 750,000 mt/y. Each party will off-take ammonia from the plant in accordance with its equity share. Total capital investment for the plant is estimated at $600 million. Yara will in addition build an ammonia tank at the BASF terminal bringing Yara’s total investment to $490 million. BASF will in addition upgrade its current terminal and pipeline assets.
The hydrogen technology reduces capex and maintenance significantly compared to a traditional natural gas based ammonia plant. The technology also allows for lower carbon dioxide emissions. A long-term supply agreement for nitrogen and hydrogen has been signed with Praxair Inc., the largest industrial gases company in North America, linking the feedstock variable cost to the advantageous natural gas prices available at the U.S. Gulf Coast.
KBR, Inc., Houston, Texas, has been awarded a fixed price turnkey contract for the engineering, procurement and construction. The plant is expected to be completed by the end of 2017. Yara will manage construction of the plant while BASF will operate the plant and the export terminal.
Workers at Israel Chemicals Ltd.’s Dead Sea Works subsidiary have gone on strike in solidarity with workers at Dead Sea Bromine Compounds. The strike began late Wednesday night after an ultimatum was issued by the Histadrut Labor Federation and the unions at ICL demanding that management retract the layoffs of the 140 workers at Dead Sea Bromine Compounds and the 130 at DSW.
ICL management is planning to appeal to the Beer Sheba Regional Labor Court to intervene and force the workers to man the chlorine and bromine facilities at the Dead Sea arguing that their shutdown poses a safety threat.
The strike at Dead Sea Bromine has gone into its third week.
The DSW plant at Sdom has been shut down in an open ended strike. The unions have called on the government to intervene in the crisis and force Israel Corp, the majority owner of ICL to rescind the cost cutting plan. DSW union leader Armand Lankry charged that management was dragging its feet and that despite the dialogue no real plan has been presented. He said he would suspend the strike if negotiations between the parties resume on a concrete plan.
ICL management is taking a hard line and has said it would not give in to DSW demands and rejected the union condition of making negotiations contingent on acceptance of the workers’ demands in advance.
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