Air Products to build a coal-to-syngas facility for Jiutai New Material

AIR Products, a world-leading industrial gases company, headquartered in Pennsylvania, US, has been awarded a contract by Jiutai New Material to build, own and operate a coal-to-syngas plant.

The US$650m facility, which will be located in Hohhot, China, will be designed to produce more than 500,000Nm³/h of syngas, which Jiutai will use for monoethylene glycol production.

The long-term contract states that Air Products will build, own, and operate the air separation, gasification, and gas cleanup facility, which will include the proven gasification technology recently acquired from Shell. Jiutai will supply the coal feedstock and take all of the plant output.

This investment is part of a multi-billion-dollar project for Jiutai, owned by the Jiutai Group, a large-scale private joint-stock enterprise mainly engaged in the production of methanol, olefins, and other chemical products.

The project is expected to come onstream in 2021.

“This facility will be the first plant 100% owned by Air Products and is a prime example of our gasification strategy focused on building, owning and operating the facilities and supplying syngas under long-term onsite contracts,” said Seifi Ghasemi, chairman and CEO of Air Products.

Air Products’ gasification projects include two other coal-to-syngas projects – one as a joint venture with the Yankuang Group, and another with Lu’An Clean Energy Company – and a recently-announced gasification/power joint venture with Saudi Aramco and ACWA Power.

Chief executive officer of Jiutai, Cui Lianguo, said the company is “looking forward to working with Air Products very closely to build and operate a first-class coal-to-chemicals plant.”