BFCL plans world-scale methanol and fertilizer plants
The Lagos-based Brass Fertilizer Company Limited (BFCL or Brass Fertilizer) is planning to build world-scale gas treatment plant supported by methanol and nitrogen fertilizer facilities on the Brass Island in the State of Bayelsa in Nigeria.
With the natural gas prices depressed as a consequence of the US shale gas glut, all the producing countries are investigating solutions to take advantage of the situation in developing competitive downstream industries fitting at best with their domestic market.
In the case of Nigeria, the most populated country in Africa, agriculture is a strategic sector calling for always more production efficiency.
As a major importer of fertilizer, while exporting natural gas, Nigeria is motivating private companies to invest in nitrogen-based fertilizer projects to provide triple wins to all parties involved:
– High pay back to investors because of low gas prices
– Employment for local communities
– Positive trading balance for the Government
Last year, Dangote Group, the largest private African company, had announced a first fertilizer project.
Then a pool of companies have decided to establish Brass Fertilizer to build a world-scale complex including:
– Gas central processing facility (CPF)
– Methanol plant
– Urea plant
With a capacity of 500 million cubic feet per day (cf/d) the gas CPF will go to market directly with condensate through its entity Brass Gas and will supply in parallel the entity Brass Methanol for the production of methanol and Brass Urea for the production of nitrogen fertilizer.
Brass Fertilizer selected EIL for project management
Brass Fertilizer completed the feasibility study of the project whereas the gas supply will be secured from ShellBlock OML 30 through dedicated inlet gas pipelines.
According to the conclusions of the feasibility study, Brass Fertilizer is planning to build this methanol and urea plants in two phases.
With a capital expenditure of $3.5 billion, the Brass Fertilizer Project Phase-1 should include the:
– Gas plant
– Methanol facility with a capacity of 1.75 million tonne per year (t/y)
– Urea first production unit of 1.3 million t/y
Then the Brass Fertilizer Project Phase-2 should break ground five years after the Phase-1 start up in commercial operations.
Requiring an additional $1 billion capital expenditure, this Brass Fertilizer Project Phase-2 will come to double the urea capacity with a second production unit of 1.3 million t/y.
In the conceptual design selected by Brass Fertilizer, the Brass Gas facility, the Brass Methanol plant and the urea plant will run independently from each other so that any interruption on one unit will not affect the others.
To be located on the coast line, the local Authorities of Bayelsa State will create a new industrial zone covering 330 hectare enabling Brass Fertilizer future expansion.
Having selected the site and set up the financing, Brass Fertilizer is now moving on the front end engineering and design (FEED) work in targeting the first production of the methanol and urea plants in 2019 with the support of Engineers India Ltd (EIL) as project manager consultant.
