World’s Largest Methanol Plant Ready for Startup
The world’s largest methanol production plant in Iran’s southern Bushehr Province is ready to come on-stream. Built by the private sector, this plant is able to produce 7,000 tonnes a day of methanol. Foad Jaberi, CEO of the plant, has played down concerns over future product sales as US sanctions take effect. “There is nothing to worry about in selling our products,” he said. The high value-added of production at petrochemical plants and Iran’s access to low-cost feedstock have helped Iran’s petrochemical industry experience high growth in recent years. Iran is still far from its realistic status in the global petrochemical trade; however, it managed to export about $12 billion worth of petrochemical products by March 2018. Currently, 54 petrochemical plants are operational in Iran, supplying 53.6 million tonnes of petrochemicals. About 30.7 million tonnes of products would be ready for sale and the rest is consumed by and between the plants. Furthermore, 34 petrochemical projects have had over 20% progress. Once these projects have been completed, Iran’s petrochemical production would soar to 75 million tonnes by March 2022. If no more petrochemical projects commission, the output from the existing projects would exceed 100 million tonnes by March 2026. Kaveh PlantAmong petrochemical projects ready to come online, Kaveh Methanol Petrochemical Plant is the most outstanding. First and foremost, it is under construction by the private sector. Second, it has capacity to produce 7,000 tonnes a day of methanol – which is the largest amount in the world. Therefore, most equipment fitted in this plant is being used for the first time.The Kaveh plant is located on a large piece of land measuring 220 ha near the city of Dayer in Bushehr Province. It is the largest AA-ranked producer of methanol in North Pars. The license and basic engineering for the plant belong to Swiss Casale while detailed engineering has been done by Petrochemical Industries Design and Engineering Company (PIDEC) and necessary utilities have been designed by an Iranian company. The ground was broken for the construction of the Kaveh methanol plant in 2004. The infrastructure was then prepared; however, due tointernational sanctions Iran could not purchase necessary equipment until 2014.The project accelerated after Iran signed the 2015 historic nuclear deal with six world powers, leading to the lifting of sanctions on the country. Different divisions of the plant started operation in 2017 and the entire plant is now ready for operation. Hassan Asbomahalleh, director of operation at the Kaveh plant, said: “Since this complex is the largest of its kind in the world, we have used unique equipment in its construction. For instance, the largest reformer and synthesis reactor, the largest ATR reactor and the largest air compressor have been installed at this complex.” The largest ASU unit with a capacity of 120,000 normal cubic meters per hour, including the world’s largest air compressor and three tanks for liquefied oxygen, argon and liquefied nitrogen is installed at the Kaveh plant. Furthermore, two 50MW steam turbine power plants and a 55MW gas power plant, four water desalinators, 14 diesel-fueled generators, seven boilers, and seawater pumping station with four pumps have been used at this complex. The seawater cooling tower system at the Kaveh methanol plant is the first of kind in Iran. It has four cells with different performance. They were purchased with 24 fans with a capacity of 80,000 tonnes per hour the largest synthesis reactor weighing 1,250 tonnes from Italy. There was initially no crane in Iran to install the purchased materials. This crane was designed and built at the Kaveh Industrial Group. Furthermore, a jetty was built for importing and exporting solid products and another one for carrying liquids and methanol from this plant.Another outstanding feature of the Kaveh petrochemical plant is its equipment with the largest reformer unit in the world. This unit converts natural gas to synthesis gas.Maximum Local ContentAs long as managers of the Kaveh plant had in their authority and the standards allowed, orders were placed with Iranian companies for the manufacturing of necessary equipment. For instance, distillation towers were built in Iran. Iranian manufacturers also built the world’s largest structure reformer. However, some materials whose production was not possible in Iran were purchased from leading European and Asian companies. To build the Kaveh methanol plant, the equipment needed for transducers and pumps were purchased from South Korea, reactors and reformers from Italy, piping materials from top European manufacturers and the compressors’ main parts from Siemens. “Since the complex was built under Swiss Casale license, we purchased our necessary equipment from the vendors confirmed by Casale,” said Ahmad Ahmadi, deputy CEO of the Kaveh plant. eferring to sanctions imposed on Iran, he said: “After the implementation