Air Products inks hydrogen supply pact with Motiva for Louisiana refinery
Air Products will supply additional hydrogen to be used by Motiva's 235,000 bpd Convent refinery in Louisiana under a long-term agreement with Motiva Enterprises, the joint venture between Shell and Saudi Aramco.
The amount of additional hydrogen to be supplied will come from Air Products' Gulf Coast hydrogen pipeline supply network serving multiple refinery and petrochemical operations in the region, the company says.
Similar to a previous August 2011 agreement between the companies, the new contract allows the direction of some of the hydrogen product supplied to Motiva's Convent refinery to go to other Motiva refineries along Air Products' pipeline network in both Texas and Louisiana.
“Our initial hydrogen supply to Motiva's Convent facility goes back many years and we are pleased to expand this working relationship with this additional agreement,” said Wilbur Mok, vice president for North America tonnage gases at Air Products.
“This is the second instance with Motiva in which the flexibility in hydrogen supply options available with our Texas and Louisiana hydrogen pipeline created added value,” he continued.
“We believe the connection of our Texas and Louisiana pipelines into one system will be an asset for the refinery and petrochemical industries along our Gulf Coast hydrogen franchise.”
Air Products currently operates hydrogen pipelines in both Texas and Louisiana. Work is underway to connect the two hydrogen systems with a new 180-mile span to make it the world's largest hydrogen plant and pipeline supply network.
Once complete, Air Products' hydrogen pipeline supply network will stretch from the Houston Ship Channel in Texas to New Orleans.
The integrated pipeline system will unite over 20 hydrogen plants and over 600 miles of pipelines, supplying the Louisiana and Texas refinery and petrochemical industries with over 1.2 billion cubic feet/day of hydrogen, the company says.
The new Gulf Coast hydrogen pipeline network is expected to be operational in 2012.
Hydrogen is widely used in petroleum refining processes to remove impurities found in crude oil such as sulfur, olefins and aromatics to meet product fuels specifications.
Comments