Green Car Congress: Air Products Brings Hydrogen Production Facility On-Stream to Supply ExxonMobils Joliet, Illinois Refinery

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Air Products Brings Hydrogen Production Facility On-Stream to Supply ExxonMobil’s Joliet, Illinois Refinery

19 October 2006

Air Products forecasts sharp growth in the demand for hydrogen for refineries given regulatory demands for cleaner fuels and growth in heavier and synthetic crudes. Click to enlarge. Source: Air Products.

Air Products, the leading global hydrogen supplier, announced that its hydrogen production facility at ExxonMobil Oil Corporation’s Joliet Refinery in Illinois is on-stream. The Air Products facility, located adjacent to the refinery, is an integrated steam methane reformer and recovery system processing refinery off-gas that supplies 18 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd) of hydrogen, as well as steam for the refinery.

This project is the fifth North American hydrogen facility brought on-stream in the past year by Air Products and the third in the US, including others at Baytown, Texas and Convent, Louisiana. Air Products also placed on-stream the largest outsourced hydrogen production facilities in Canada near Edmonton, Alberta and in Sarnia, Ontario.

Additionally, in 2006, Air Products will bring on-stream another US facility in Port Arthur, Texas. In 2006 Air Products will have increased hydrogen production capacity by more than 450 mmscfd.

The company also announced earlier this year plans for a second Edmonton, Alberta facility to come on-stream in 2008 and produce 105 mmscfd as the first merchant plant in Canada to provide a sale of hydrogen for use in the upgrading of Canadian oil sands.

The hydrogen intensity of refining is increasing. Click to enlarge.

Air Products forecasts a sharp and ongoing rise in the need for hydrogen at refineries to handle the increasing percentage of heavy and sour crude and Canadian oil sands syncrude flowing into US refineries. A high conversion process to transportation fuel could require up to 1,000 standard cubic feet (28.3 Nm³ or 2.38 kg) per barrel of crude, according to Air Products. (See chart at right.)

Earlier in October, Praxair announced the startup of a new 20 mmscfd hydrogen plant in Whiting, Indiana to support the BP refinery and other customers. BP will use the hydrogen in the production of ultra-low-sulfur gasoline and diesel fuels. (Earlier post.)

Providing refiners with hydrogen is one of our key growth businesses.

—Jeff Byrne, Air Products’ vice president and general manager, Refining and Process Industries

The Joliet supply arrangement is one of more than 30 that the company has undertaken with worldwide refiners in the past 15 years.

The Joliet hydrogen facility is the 26th to be built under a global alliance between Air Products and Technip. Technip provides the design and construction for hydrogen generation units while Air Products provides the gas separation technology. The plants are operated and maintained by Air Products under long-term agreements with customers.

Resources:

Air Products presentation

October 19, 2006 in Fuels, Hydrogen | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Comments

High conversion refineries could make gasoline->JP->marine fuel fractions available in higher quatities, and quality. The flip side is the use of even more CH4, likely from fossil sources. This will likely drive up the demand, thus price, for natural gas, and perhaps other sources of H2. The end result may be more high quality finished fossil fuel, but at higher carbon intensity; more fuel, less smog/particulate/acid/aerosol pollution, but more GHG, and higher electric/natural gas prices.
__This may force the LPG terminal debate to be a top issue. We are starting to see a disturbing trend in natural gas reserves of NA. Newer wells deplete faster than older ones, and new ones are not coming online fast enough to replace older production. We may be nearing a parallel to peak fossil oil, peak fossil gas- at least in NA. Norway and Russia are two countries (among others) with big reserves, much of it untapped. This is where LPG tankers come in. To supply the US market, while keeping a developing Mexico and oil sands developing Canada supplied as well, the:
a) North Slope and Mackenzie Delta gas is piped south for Canadaian and US markets
b) LPG terminals are constructed for additional overseas source.
c) renewable biomethane production (some part of GHG capture programs) are small, but important local sources
NIMBY chants will be abound.

Posted by: allen_Z | October 19, 2006 at 02:57 PM

Sempra Energy is currently building a huge LNG facility in Mexico because of NIMBYism. It's due to come online in 2008 with a capacity of about 1 billion bcf. I've read about a proposal for shipboard capabilities to re-gasify the LNG and thus offload it about 15 miles offshore California.

Alaska also has some very large natural gas reserves, about a 15 year supply. There are pipeline projects in the planning stages to bring that south up to 5 billion cubic feet per day.

The end result may be more high quality finished fossil fuel, but at higher carbon intensity; more fuel, less smog/particulate/acid/aerosol pollution, but more GHG, and higher electric/natural gas prices.

We've certainly made some trade-offs here. Increased GHG for less overall pollution that is actually toxic.

Posted by: Cervus | October 19, 2006 at 04:40 PM

Perhaps it'll be more efficient and cleaner to just turn bad or sour crude oil into methane and H2 as transportation fuels and forget about refining low quality crude oil by wasting valuable methane and H2?

Somewhat expensive changes in infrastructure will be needed in the short run, but will last long into the future even after exhaustion of all petroleum reserves.

Posted by: Roger Pham | October 19, 2006 at 08:21 PM