Page 28 - Industrial Plants

plant is a greenfield design, while the upstream part is production sites of Perstorp in Europe via ship
a challenging brownfield revamping project. Perstorp transportation on small chemical tankers, therefore the
and Uniper have as technology providers Johnson project also includes the marine loading facilities, a 4
Matthey, Air Products and Chemicals Inc. and Sunfire, km pipeline connecting the storage tanks at site to the
respectively licensing the methanol production process marine jetty. The project is completed by retrofitting the
and the partial oxidation process of biogas to produce existing utilities and offsites, as well as the wastewater
synthesis gas (syngas) and for the supply of electrolysers treatment plant which is upgraded to treat effluents
producing green hydrogen. According to the innovative from the entire site with the aim to recover the amount
process scheme of Project Air, 200,000 tons of of water necessary for the electrolyser.
methanol will be produced yearly by converting a Wood is carrying out the Front-End Engineering Design
variety of sustainable and green feedstocks. (FEED) phase of the project in complete overlap with
The biogas from the network is fed as main feedstock the development of the process design packages by
stream to a gasifier together with oxygen and other the licensors of methanol and gasification areas,
organic residues recovered from the existing production elevating the degree of completeness from an
plants in Stenungsund. The syngas produced by partial engineering standpoint. The final goal of the FEED is to
oxidation is then integrated with hydrogen carrying reach a +/-10% cost estimate for Project Air. Such
gaseous streams left over from the oxo-alcohol plants. estimate will be used by Perstorp to secure the final
Additional carbon feedstock, added to reach the target investment decision in early 2025. In view of a fast
methanol capacity, is the captured carbon dioxide from execution of the next detailed engineering phase, the
an existing amine unit. The required hydrogen for the long lead items requisitions and tendering are
methanol production is sourced from external and developed to reach the status of ready for order. At
nearby industrial facilities and from an electrolyser plant FEED phase completion, Wood will prepare the
exploiting 30 MW of renewable electric power. technical tender documents for the EPCm phase.
The produced methanol, according to the scheme Project Air is an exceptional example of energy
described, is equivalent to the avoidance of greenhouse transition project. In this paper two of the most
gases emissions of 500,000 tons per annum of carbon challenging aspects of the FEED project execution are
dioxide. The methanol will be exported to other summarized: the former is a showcasing on the

Figure 2 - Plot plan view from the 3D model developed for the gasification area of Project Air. Coloured
adjacent structures are the newly added ones; white elements are existing

INDUSTRIAL PLANTS - May 2024
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