Air Products (Lehigh Valley, Pa.; www.airproducts.com) today held a groundbreaking ceremony at Covestro’s Baytown, Texas facility where Air Products will invest $350–400 million to build, own and operate a world-scale steam methane reformer (SMR). The SMR will produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide (CO) to be supplied to Covestro and other customers linked to Air Products’ Gulf Coast Hydrogen and CO Pipeline Networks. The plant, which will start-up in 2018, is already completely sold out.
“We have worked with Covestro (formerly Bayer MaterialScience) for decades and look forward to being an important industrial gas supplier to them in Baytown for many more years to come. The new SMR strengthens Air Products’ position in the Texas carbon-monoxide market and enhances our well established hydrogen supply network,” says Corning Painter, executive vice president, Industrial Gases at Air Products.
The SMR and cold box will be located on land leased from Covestro, a world-leading manufacturer of high-tech polymer materials for key industries, headquartered in Leverkusen, Germany. The SMR will produce approximately 125 million standard cubic feet per day of hydrogen and a world-scale supply of carbon monoxide.
Covestro’s Baytown facility, its largest plant in North and Central America, was established in 1971 and employs a workforce of 1,100 with an additional 750 contractors. Covestro’s primary products at its Baytown site include toluene diisocyanate (TDI) and methylene diphenylene isocyanates (MDI), in addition to coatings and adhesives, inorganic basic chemicals, polycarbonates, and polyurethanes. It is a leading supplier of high-value polymers and innovative solutions for key sectors such as transportation, construction, electronics, furniture, sports equipment and textiles.
The new SMR will be built through the global hydrogen alliance between Air Products and Technip, a world leader in project management, engineering and construction. The plant will feature the latest technology to maximize energy efficiency and reduce emissions, and will include optimal heat integration, which in turn lowers feedstock consumption. The plant configuration and deployed technologies support Air Products’ overall sustainability goals of reducing energy consumption and emissions.