6 replies to this topic

[Farmer]

I represent a group of farmers who are are consumers of ammonia in various forms and who happen to live near a natural gas field. We are looking to build plant to convert the natural gas into fertilizer.

We are looking for an engineering firm that will answer some basic questions for us and then design a facility. Is there anyone here that can help with this or can you help us identify good engineering firms that can help us?

Thank you

[Dazzler]

Hi Farmer
It would be useful if you could indicate which country or region you are located in, as this may effect the suggested companies offered.
Dazzler

[Farmer]

Location is central United States

[Farmer]

bump

[Technical Bard]

If you want to produce NH3 from natural gas, you will be using the Haber-Bosch process (in all likelihood). There are numerous licensors of this technology (e.g. Casale, KBR, Haldor Topsoe). Most commercial ammonia plants built today are larger than 1500 tonne/d of anhydrous product, and are often coupled to a urea facility because of the economies of scale and integration. If you want to discuss further, send me a private message on this system.

[Dazzler]

A couple other technology licensors are KBR, Uhde, Stamicarbon.

I'm not sure if there are package unit licensors for smaller plants. That may be worthwhile to investigate.

However, in general ammonia plants are complex and expensive, and large to be economical.

Many fertiliser companies or plants instead import their ammonia and store it in a large liquid anhydrous ammonia tank, then use this as a raw material to make fertilisers such as urea, ammonium nitrate, ammonium sulphate, ammonium phosphate. Obviously other raw materials would be needed also to make these products.

Dazzler

[Satyajit]

Hi Farmer,
Thanks for bringing such interesting topics. I have been working in ammonia industries for over 23 years. I have worked in most of the technology available in the market today (Topsoe, Kellog, KBR, UHDE, Flour, Casale, Chiyoda etc). Based on my design, commissioning and plant operation experiences, I can reply most of the questions you have and help you to get good engineering companies based in USA and Canada who can help you to construct ammonia plant in your place.
As the gas price is cheaper in USA, based on your investment level, you can select the best technology from the market. For a typical Topsoe plant, you can have a medium sized complex built by 1.5 Billion USD . Investment for a KBR based plant will be at higher side. The best way to select is to do plant modeling using Aspen plus and compare different options and select the most suitable one based on specific consumption and less CO2 emission. What I have seen and calculated recently that ammonia plant front end design has been replaced by most energy efficient process in recent days; for example, reformer furnace is replaced by heat exchanger reformer where both capital investment, energy consumption and CO2 emission have been reduced significantly. There are couple of plants already started running in Canada,Trinidad,China and India.
I am eager to help you and provide you support or give you contact who can help you. Please write to me privately if you need bigger support.
Kind regards,
Satyajit

Edited by Satyajit, 12 March 2012 - 04:06 PM.