🏭 MTO, but not from coal

Good morning. If you're not familiar with methanol-to-olefins or Uzbekistan's natural gas situation you should definitely give the first story a read—feel free to reply to this email if you have any questions (or something you'd like to add)!

From the condenser:

· MTO from natural gas in Uzbekistan

· Sasol's plans to burning fermentation waste

· POTD: golf balls

Natural-gas-based MTO is coming

Jizzakh Petroleum, a joint venture between Russia's Gazprom and several others, has selected Wood to design several plants at their upcoming $2.5 billion methanol-to-olefins (MTO) and derivatives complex in Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

The context you need:

The petrochemical industry is built on olefins and aromatics, both of which are primarily produced by the steam cracking of naphtha (from refineries, from crude oil) or ethane (from gas processors, from natural gas). But steam cracking isn't the only route to those molecules. Another route, called MTO, has become widely used in China over the last two decades.

So, what's up with MTO?

China has been gasifying coal to make syngas, using that syngas to make methanol, and then converting that methanol into olefins (such as ethylene and propylene). That route has made good economic sense in China for two reasons: (1) the country has a lot of coal, and (2) the country doesn't have a lot of oil or gas. That's not the case in Uzbekistan—the country has plenty of natural gas reserves—so why are they going the MTO route instead of steam cracking ethane like the US Gulf Coast?

Connecting the dots:

If the country went the ethane cracking route, it would only get to use about 20% of its natural gas to make chemicals. That's because natural gas is mostly methane, which can't be cracked to make olefins, so you'd need to remove the methane and sell it for its heat value. Doing that methane removal makes sense when you're selling LNG at a premium (e.g. the exports leaving the US Gulf Coast), but it doesn't make sense if you're land-locked and facing political pressure to reduce imports.

Their plan:

Going the MTO route means they can convert all of this natural gas into valuable chemicals and polymers. Their plan is to convert the natural gas into methanol, convert that methanol into olefins, and then to use those olefins to make mono-ethylene glycol, low-density polyethylene, and polypropylene (which, by the way, are the plants Wood is designing).

Sasol is burning fermentation waste instead

South African chemical company, Sasol, is planning to source electricity and steam from a future biomass cogeneration facility near its site in Brunsbüttel, Germany.

The background you need:

Chemical plants need electricity to compress and transport molecules (mostly via pumps and compressors) and need heat to react and separate molecules (mostly via steam). Making that electricity and heat typically involves burning hydrocarbons (mostly natural gas) at cogeneration plants (which are basically small power plants that make electricity and heat instead of just electricity). It's the burning of those hydrocarbons that results in most of these CO2 emissions.

So, what's the deal here?

Instead of burning something like natural gas, this cogeneration site will burn dried fermentation residue to generate electricity and heat. That dried residue is the stuff you find at the bottom of fermentation units (like the ones that make beer) and anaerobic digestors (like the ones that make bio-based methane from cow poop). When the new cogeneration plant starts up in 2025, it will provide Sasol with half of the steam needed to make the fatty alcohols, Guerbet alcohols, and alumina derivatives (mostly used as adsorbents) you'll find at Brunsbüttel.

Zooming out:

Let's not forget that burning bio-based material still produces CO2—that means Sasol is mostly reducing its scope 2 emissions (inherited emissions from procured energy) from this change, not its scope 1 emissions (emissions directly caused by assets the company owns). And for what it's worth, it's probably not a coincidence that the company is choosing to implement this at a site that produces molecules that can be marketed to consumers (fatty alcohols are used in cosmetics).

Some more headlines:

• L&T is going to help Indian Oil Corporation expand one of its refineries

• John Richardson of ICIS says that the trends driving chemical growth are changing

• LyondellBasell just announced its quarterly dividend

• Lanxess is bringing a new beverage preservative to the market

• LanzaJet is a fan of the new Inflation Reduction Act

Product of The Day:

Today, we're breaking down golf balls.

Anyone who has bounced a golf ball on concrete has wondered what's going on inside these things. As seen in the photo, if you cut them open you'll find that they have layers (just like ogres!).

In today's day and age, the center of the ball is usually a hard core made of a butadiene rubber, surrounded by a crosslinked copolymer consisting of ethylene and a small amount of vinyl acid groups (called an ionomer), and coated by a polyurethane. Next time you think about golf try to remember that it's companies like Lanxess making the rubber, DuPont making the ionomer, and PPG making the coating (that's not a knock on ball manufacturing, just a nod to the molecule makers). If you're still interested give this C&EN article a read.

In case you're interested:

• Book: You need to understand the forces behind the oil industry to understand the chemical industry. Daniel Yergin's The New Map does a great job breaking it down.*

• Course: Want a complete overview of the major petrochemicals and how we make them? This will cover all the bases.*

• Article: Oleochemicals are making a comeback because of the sustainability push. Give this a read if you want some context.

• Safety Moment: Chevron's Richmond Refinery caught fire in 2012—take a moment to learn why.

The bottoms:

All views represent those of the author not their employer.