MOSCOW (MRC) -- Messer Group (Bad Soden, Germany), the largest family-owned industrial gases producer, has announced plans to invest more than EUR35 million (USD41 million) to build a new air separation plant in Tarragona, Spain, reported Chemweek.
Commissioning is scheduled for December 2021.
The facility will be located at Vilaseca in the south of the industrial chemical complex at Tarragona and have the capacity to produce 2,400 metric tons/day of oxygen, nitrogen, and argon, it says. The plant will also be certified for the production of medical gases. It will be connected to Messer’s existing pipeline network to meet growing demand for oxygen and nitrogen by chemical companies in Tarragona, it says. Manufacturing companies in the region will also be supplied with gases transported by tankers and cylinders, it adds.
Around 200 people will be employed on the project during the planning and construction phase, with more than 20 permanent employees on site after completion, according to Messer.
The investment will ensure “a reliable and flexible supply” to the company's customers and optimize its own processes by using the most advanced technology, says Stefan Messer, Messer’s owner and CEO.
As MRC informed before, Spanish oil and gas company Repsol plans to invest EUR80 million (USD90 million) to build two new plants in the Bilbao area as part of efforts reduce its carbon emissions. Repsol will build what it said would be one of the world’s biggest net-zero emissions fuel facilities, based on green hydrogen generated with renewable energy and carbon dioxide captured at the Petronor refinery in northern Spain, in which it owns a majority stake.
We remind that Repsol's refinery at Puertollano in central Spain will carry out an upgrade of its olefins unit. The modernization will be a part of planned maintenance of the cracker and chemical derivative plants at the end of 2020.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's overall PE production totalled 1,712,400 tonnes in the first seven months of 2020, up by 58% year on year. Linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) accounted for the greatest increase in the output. At the same time, overall PP production in Russia increased in January-July 2020 by 24% year on year to 1,063,700 tonne. ZapSibNeftekhim accounted for the main increase in the output.
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