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Pump Industry Analyst February 1999

in the spring of 2000, with full operation of the entire facility expected in June 2001.

PEAK DEMAND GAS POWER PLANT FOR

ILLINOIS Dynegy of Houston, Texas and Nicor of Naperville, Illi- nois are to jointly construct a 250 MW natural gas-fueled, peak-demand power genera- tion facility in East Dundee, Illinois.

Construction on the Rocky Road power plant is expected to begin during the first quarter of 1999 and the facility should be in service this summer. Dynegy and Nicor will each own a 50 per cent interest in the facility through a special purpose partnership. The Rocky Road power plant will use natural gas delivered through the Nicor system as fuel to generate electricity that will support regional demand. In addition, the merchant facil- ity will be able to support elec- tricity demands in other regions of the country. The plant will be a peak-demand facility and will be operated to meet demand on an as-needed basis.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

COMMITS TO TTL TECHNOLOGY

Largo, Florida-based Toups Technology Licensing Inc has entered a joint venture with Compania de Luz y Fuerza de las Terrenas to build and operate Aqua- Fuel TM production plants and AquaFuel electric power generation facilities in the Dominican Republic.

TTL's AquaFuel is pro- duced from a patented process involving the electric dis- charge of carbon arcs in water.

Luz y Fuerza is a consor- tium organised to privatise the delivery of electric power

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throughout the country. It is the Dominican Republic's only non-government electric utili- ty, operating several power generation facilities and its own transmission lines that carry electricity to four major urban areas.

The first Dominican Aqua- Fuel production plant will be built according to a 15-month feasibility and development schedule. Design and engi- neering has started, and a com- mercial-size generator is scheduled for installation by May 1999. It will be designed to generate at least 4000 cubic feet of AquaFuel per hour on a continual basis using modified electric arc furnace technology and will fuel one or more nat- ural gas-converted diesel elec- tric generators capable of pro- viding approximately 1 MW of electricity.

FASTER LNG/LPG TERMINALS

PLANNED Shell Global Solutions and Cryogaz Technologies are to co-operate on the develop- ment of fast track, low cost Liquid Natural Gas and Liq- uid Petroleum Gas (LNG/ LPG) terminal projects.

The Suape LNG import terminal in Northeast Brazil will be the first project site. It will provide Petrobras and Shell Brazil with a high quality design package for a safe, reli- able and cost-effective termi- nal. The proposed terminal in Suape will be South America's first regasification terminal. Shell Global Solutions is the network of technology compa- nies operated by the Royal Dutch/Shell Group. Cryogaz Technologies is a commercial joint venture between Tech- nigaz, owned by Bouygues Offshore, and Sofregaz, a sub- sidiary of Gaz de France.

UNION CARBIDE'S TAFT PLANT

OPENS Union Carbide Corporation has announced the start-up of its new 300 million pounds-per-year ethoxyla- tion plant at the company's Taft, Louisiana petrochemi- cals complex.

Commercial production of TERGITOL ® nonylphenol ethoxylate (NPE) surfactants is underway at the facility, and transfer of NPE production to Taft from Union Carbide plants in Texas City and Sead- rift, Texas, is complete. The new plant will also begin pro- ducing CARBOWAX ® poly- ethylene glycols this year.

Union Carbide is the world's largest producer of NPEs. In addition to its Taft, Texas City and Seadrift facili- ties, the company's ethoxyla- tion network includes units at South Charleston and Institute, West Virginia.

SHELL CHEMICALS, BASF

PLAN SM/PO FACILITY

Shell Chemicals and BASF are to form a new 50/50 joint venture for the production of styrene monomer (SM) and propylene oxide (PO) in Singapore.

The final investment deci- sions by the boards of both companies are expected during 1999. The new world-scale facility will be built at the Ser- aya site in Singapore, where Shell already has an SM/PO plant in a joint venture with Mitsubishi Chemical Corpora- tion (MCC). This plant has been in operation since May 1997.

The projected plant, which is planned to be on stream at the end of 2001, will be the fourth plant worldwide using Shell's advanced proprietary SM/PO technology and will have an annual production

capacity of 250 000 metric tons of PO and 550 000 met- ric tons of SM. BASELL, another BASF/Shell joint venture, is building a similar plant at the Moerdijk site in the Netherlands.

Shell is set to enter into an arrangement with MCC for long-term off-take rights for a substantial volume of SM from the planned new facility. Shell will also increase its PO con- version capacity on the Seraya site through an investment in a world-scale Polyol plant and an expansion of the existing Propylene Glycol unit.

FOSTER WHEELER WINS

DEER PARK REFINERY

EXPANSION PROJECT

A joint venture between Shell Oil Company and PMI Norteamerica, a Petroleos Mexicanos company, has awarded a contract to Foster Wheeler USA Corporation to support the expansion of the venture's refinery in Deer Park, Texas.

The refinery will process larger quantities of heavy, sour Maya crude supplied by Petroleos Mexicanos.

The centerpiece of the refinery expansion project is Foster Wheeler's proprietary Selective Yield Delayed Cok- ing (SYDEC4) technology. This US$300 million expan- sion project follows Foster Wheeler's 1995 completion of the delayed coker project that converted the Deer Park refin- ery for processing Maya crude.

For the current expansion project, Foster Wheeler USA's Southwest Operations Center in Houston, Texas, will provide process design, detailed engi- neering, construction planning and procurement services for the delayed coking unit and gas plant.