Agrium's Kenai Blue Sky Project: Repowering an Ammonia/Urea Complex with Coal Gasification

摘要

The Cook Inlet region of Alaska has a variety of established industries that were built around an abundance of low cost natural gas. The natural gas supply is vanishing, forcing these industries to either cease operations or to pass on the increased cost of fuel to utilities and consumers. Agrium U.S. Inc. has been working with Black & Veatch and Uhde to investigate the feasibility of using coal gasification to provide a long-term commercially viable alternative to natural gas. The objective of the Kenai Blue Sky Project is to construct a gasification block and power generation plant adjacent to Agrium's Kenai Nitrogen Operations (KNO) facility, both capable of efficiently utilizing indigenous sub-bituminous Alaskan coal. Startup is scheduled for 2011. A single gasifier train would produce the hydrogen (H{sub}2), nitrogen (N{sub}2) steam and carbon dioxide (CO{sub}2) required by the nitrogen complex. If determined to be economically attractive, the project would also provide low cost coal-based power for sale into the Alaskan market, and supply excess CO{sub}2 to recover up to 300 million barrels of oil from local oil fields through Enhanced Oil Recovery. With almost 40 years of Alaskan experience, the KNO facility has traditionally been able to successfully compete in the export fertilizer market. Based on the abundant supply of Alaskan coal, this project will effectively mitigate the volatility associated with traditional natural gas based fertilizer producers and assure a long-term supply of gas feedstocks to KNO. Nearby coal reserves are projected to provide well in excess of 100 years of economic development. The abundant low-cost feedstock opportunity offered by coal gasification transforms KNO from an asset with significant leverage potential, depending upon feedstock arrangement, into a long-term asset.