Air Products’ Pipeline Network to Supply Hydrogen to Total’s Expansion Project in Texas
03 June 2008
Air Products has signed an agreement for long-term hydrogen supply with Total Petrochemicals USA, Inc. to support Total’s new deep conversion expansion project at its Port Arthur, Texas refinery. Total’s Port Arthur refinery will use the hydrogen to process alternative crudes and expand its output of cleaner burning transportation fuels.
Air Products will supply Total with more than 60 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD) of hydrogen from its extensive West Gulf Coast hydrogen pipeline network beginning in 2010.
Total’s Port Arthur refinery project includes building a 50,000-barrel-per-day coker, a desulfurization unit, a vacuum distillation unit and other related units. The new investments will increase the facility’s deep-conversion capacity and expand its ability to process heavy and sour crude oil, adding three million tons per year of ultra low sulfur automotive diesel to the refinery’s current production, and raising total output of all products combined to around 12 million tons per year.
Air Products also provides Total with hydrogen and other industrial gas products at Port Arthur and other sites in the Gulf Coast.
Air Products’ West Gulf Coast pipeline network is part of its overall Gulf Coast pipeline network, which extends from the Houston Ship Channel in Texas to Lake Charles, La., and from Baton Rouge to Norco, La., and east of New Orleans.
One of the concerns about a hydrogen infrastructure is how it will be distributed. What this agreement reflects is that hydrogen can be safely transported using a pipeline, as it has been for many decades. More than 40 billion kg of hydrogen are produced globally each year with production plants located near or within every major metropolitan city in the US – enough to fuel 130 million fuel cell-electric vehicles annually. In fact, 53 percent of hydrogen produced in the US today is already used in for transportation removing sulfur and from petroleum during the refining process. Since hydrogen is used to produce gasoline, switching from gas to hydrogen to fuel our transportation is achievable.
As energy costs continue to increase, it is becoming more critical for the world to transition to an alternative fueling infrastructure. As a representative of the Hydrogen Education Foundation, I am helping people understand how hydrogen carries the promise to guide us away from using oil and coal, while simultaneously improving our environment by reducing greenhouse gases.
To learn more about the benefits of hydrogen, we invite everyone to please visit www.h2andyou.org.
Posted by: Miguel | 06 June 2008 at 07:19 AM