Conversion of Ammonia Plants to Methanol Production

摘要

This report investigates the technical feasibility and capital cost of converting an ammonia plant to a methanol plant, both using natural gas as a feedstock. It was determined that the ammonia industry, which currently produces about 20 million tons of ammonia per year in the United States, could convert their facilities to produce 16.4 million tons per year of methanol, or a fuel oil equivalent of 150,000 barrels per day. Such a conversion would cost about $2.1 billion, compared to a cost of $3.1 billion for building new natural gas-based methanol plants of the same capacity. While converting ammonia plants to methanol production has favorable capital costs over that of building new plants, the savings of one-third is not large, particularly considering the effects of eliminating (or reducing) ammonia production. Thus, it would appear at this time that large savings cannot be obtained from the conversion of ammonia plants to methanol production.