Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group Co. Ltd. has let a contract to Johnson Matthey to provide technology licensing for a third methanol synthesis plant at its 600,000-tonnes/year coal-to-olefins (CTO) complex at Ningdong Energy Chemical Base in Yinchuan City, Ningxia Province, China.
As part of the contract, Johnson Matthey will deliver associated engineering, technical review, commissioning assistance, equipment, and catalyst for the proposed 7,200-tonnes/day plant, which will be equipped with Johnson Matthey’s proprietary Advanced Series Loop technology and radial steam-raising converters to produce stabilized methanol from a feedstock of coal-derived synthesis gas (syngas), the service provider said.
Baofeng Energy will use methanol production from the new plant—which, upon startup, will become the world’s largest single-train methanol plant—to produce olefins in one of the Ningdong complex’s downstream units.
This latest contract follows Baofeng Energy’s previous awards to Johnson Matthey for licensing of the Ningdong complex’s original 4,450-tonnes/day methanol synthesis unit started up in 2014 as well as its second unit commissioned in May 2020 (OGJ Online, June 29, 2020).
Johnson Matthey disclosed neither a value of the contract nor a timeframe for startup of the newly proposed third plant.
Baofeng Energy’s Ningdong CTO complex currently produces 4 million tpy of methanol, 1.2 million tpy of olefins, 4 million tpy of coke, and 780,000 tpy of specialty chemicals from coal-derived feedstock.
