Egyptian fertilizer plants shut down temporarily due to gas supply pressures

Gas supplies will gradually resume flowing as to fertilizer factories in Egypt after several chemical and fertilizer companies shut down plants on a temporary basis, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The companies said in bourse disclosures that increased consumption-driven pressures on the natural gas network led to fluctuations in supply. Some cited high temperatures as a reason for the disruption, as more gas was used for power generation.

On Tuesday, a joint statement by the petroleum and electricity ministries announced an extension of rolling power cuts across the country for an extra hour to allow for preventative maintenance on its regional gas and power networks, and because of increased consumption caused by a heatwave.

Temperatures rose to between 38-40 degrees Celsius (100.4°F) across Egypt on Tuesday and Wednesday and are expected to rise further on Thursday and Friday.

Egypt Kuwait Holding, Misr Fertilizers Company MFPC.CA and Abu Qir Fertilizers and Chemical Industries said they were shutting down plants for 24 hours until network pressure stabilized. Egyptian Chemical Industries Corp, Sidi Kerir Petrochemicals Co. also announced closures, but did not give a timeline.

Supplies of the natural gas that helps Egypt generate electricity have been dwindling at a time when an expanding population and urban development have been pushing up electricity demand. When temperatures rise, air conditioning use drives up power consumption. Scheduled power outages began in Egypt last summer, coming as a shock to Egyptians accustomed to years of reliable power supplies under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

The government said they would be temporary but the load shedding continued after temperatures dipped. After a pause earlier this year for the holy month of Ramadan, when many Muslims fast during daylight hours, two-hour daily cuts resumed.

The government has heavily subsidized power prices for years and has deferred cuts to the subsidies amid economic pressures on citizens and businesses.

We remind, the Egyptian EPP, together with the South Korean company Samsung, is considering the possibility of expanding polypropylene (PP) production capacity in Port Said by 300 thousand tons per year, to 650 thousand tons per year. As a result, Egypt's total PP production capacity will reach 860 thousand tons per year.

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BASF has sold its bioenergy enzymes business based in San Diego to Lallemand's subsidiaries, Danstar Ferment AG and Lallemand Specialties Inc., said the company.

This includes the Spartec product portfolio and related technologies in development. Lallemand will integrate the business and associated employees in its Lallemand Biofuels & Distilled Spirits (LBDS) business unit. As of June 1, all business activities have been taken over by Lallemand.

LBDS is a leading global supplier of fermentation ingredients and technical solutions, and this acquisition demonstrates LBDS’s commitment to the fuel ethanol and alcohol industries. LBDS has partnered with BASF’s bioenergy business since 2017, jointly developing the expression of gluco and alpha amylase enzymes in bioengineered yeast, now widely used in the North American ethanol production market.

“We see the capabilities of BASF’s bioenergy team and its Spartec® products and pipeline technologies as highly complementary with ours,” said Angus Ballard, President and General Manager of LBDS. “By combining resources and R&D programs, we will be even better placed to meet our global customers’ requirements.”

“Lallemand is the best owner for the bioenergy enzymes business,” said Daniel Wilms, Vice President Strategy, Innovation & Sustainability at BASF’s Nutrition & Health division. “Their dedication to the biofuel industry, along with their complementary portfolio and global presence, will create new opportunities for growth.”

BASF remains focused on its enzyme activities in the animal feed and detergents markets. It will continue to provide agronomic solutions for farmers to produce low-carbon intensity crops for the bioenergy industry.

LBDS will present its expanded portfolio at the Fuel and Ethanol Workshop (FEW) in Minneapolis, taking place from June 10-12. Both parties have agreed not to disclose the financial and commercial terms of the agreement.

We remind, BASF would like to transform sugar and carbon dioxide into fumaric acid, an important intermediate for chemical production. To this end, the company is collaborating with Saarland University, University of Marburg and the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau in a joint research project entitled FUMBIO (FUMarsaure BIObasiert).

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Technip Energies, in consortium with Turner Industries, has been awarded the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract by ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions Onshore Storage LLC, said the company.

Technip Energies will oversee the engineering and procurement while Turner Industries will be responsible for the construction.

The contract covers ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions’ plans for the delivery of a carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) system that could condition, compress, and transport, for eventual storage, up to 800,000 tpy of CO2 from a manufacturing plant located in Convent, Louisiana, and owned by Nucor Corporation, North America’s largest steel producer and recycler.

The Nucor manufacturing site produces direct reduced iron (DRI), a raw material that is mixed with recycled scrap at Nucor steel mills, which make higher grades of steel products, including automobile parts, household appliances, and tools and machinery. The CCUS system is designed to enable the Nucor facility to produce DRI with up to 80% less greenhouse gas emissions than traditional blast furnace iron production.

ExxonMobil selected Technip Energies to perform the front-end engineering design (FEED), and together with Turner Industries worked to solidify the EPC execution approach.

We remind, ExxonMobil Chemical announced plans to close its ethylene and propylene production facility located in the Normandy region of France in 2024. This will happen if appropriate permission is received from the local government. The company is going to stop the operation of the steam cracking unit, launched back in 1967. The plant's production capacity is estimated at 425 thousand tons of ethylene and 290 thousand tons of propylene per year.

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China plans to create standards for carbon footprint accounting for around 100 key products and establish a carbon footprint management system by 2027, said Reuters.

The action plan was jointly released by MEE and another 14 government bodies, such as the top economic planner National Development and Reform Commissions, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It reflects an unprecedented level of collaboration across the national government and underscores the importance of the carbon accounting mechanism, especially to address carbon-related trade policies introduced by countries such as the US, the EU and Australia.

The plan named the products that should be prioritized when developing carbon footprint accounting standards, including electricity, coal, natural gas, fuel oil, iron and steel, electrolytic aluminum, cement, fertilizers, hydrogen, lime, glass, ethylene, synthetic ammonia, calcium carbide, methanol, lithium batteries, new energy vehicles, solar photovoltaic (PV) products and electronic appliances.

The plan also called for developing a comprehensive database to support accurate carbon footprint accounting, based on existing data in the country’s greenhouse gas emission factor database. The emission factors for calculating the carbon footprints of primary energy products, conventional commodities (including their raw materials and semifinished products) and transportation should be established first, MEE said.

The plan also called for developing a digital management system to track all carbon footprint data and guiding companies to report the carbon footprint of their products, starting from an initial, voluntary phase.

We remind, Hanbang Petrochemical, also known as China Prosperity Jiangyin Petrochemical, restarted its 2.2-million-tonne-per-year purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant in Jiangsu province on May 31. The plant was taken offline in January 2021, according to a statement from China Resources Chemical Materials Technology (CRCMT), which is in the process of buying out Hanbang. The shutdown was related to Hanbang Petrochemica's bankruptcy proceedings.

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BASF would like to transform sugar and carbon dioxide into fumaric acid, an important intermediate for chemical production, said the company.

To this end, the company is collaborating with Saarland University, University of Marburg and the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau in a joint research project entitled FUMBIO (FUMarsaure BIObasiert). The bacterium, which was isolated in 2008 from the rumen of a Holstein cow, will be genetically modified by researchers so that it produces large quantities of bio-based fumaric acid, also known as fumarate, during fermentation. With this intermediate, BASF can make a wide range of products with a low carbon footprint, including additives for food and animal feed, starting materials for medication, or building blocks for polymers and detergents and formulators.

Fumaric acid is very common in nature and is an intermediate product in many metabolic processes in humans, animals and plants. In the chemical industry, it has traditionally been produced primarily from fossil-based raw materials, such as crude oil. The FUMBIO research project will measure the CO2 footprint of fumarate made with biotechnology methods and compare this to petrochemical-based production. The cooperation partners expect the carbon footprint will be significantly lower – or even negative, thanks to the use of CO2 as a raw material.

White biotechnology increasingly important. The CO2 that the bacteria will use as a source of carbon, in addition to sugar, in the fermentation process will come from exhaust gas streams at chemical production plants. “Carbon dioxide is an important raw material for us in the chemical industry,” Nave explains. “If we recycle CO2 from industrial off-gas, this will help us to reduce emissions of this greenhouse gas and achieve our climate targets by 2050.”

Biotechnology processes, such as fermentation, in which microorganisms such as bacteria or fungi use CO2 as a building block for metabolic products, will also become increasingly important for the chemical industry in the future. “White biotechnology is an important tool that will enable us to offer our customers a wider range of bio-based products with a low carbon footprint.”

The FUMBIO project receives financial support from Germany’s Federal Ministry for Education and Research. In total, the Ministry is providing around EUR2.6 million to the project partners.

We remind, BASF has sold its bioenergy enzymes business based in San Diego to Lallemand's subsidiaries, Danstar Ferment AG and Lallemand Specialties Inc.

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