Turkmenistan chooses Haldor Topsøe to design new ammonia plant

In collaboration with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Haldor Topsoe has been selected for the design of a new ammonia plant for a major fertilizer project in Turkmenistan, the company announced on Wednesday.

The project has been awarded by State Concern Turkmenhimiya, a state-owned chemical company in Turkmenistan and also includes project partners Mitsubishi Corp. and the Turkish construction company GAP Insaat.

The fertilizer plant is scheduled to go on stream in June 2018 and will become the largest in Turkmenistan, located in the city of Garabogaz on the coast of the Caspian Sea in the northwestern part of the country. 

Using Turkmenistan's abundant natural gas reserve as feedstock, the plant will have a daily capacity of 2,000 metric tons of ammonia and 3,500 metric tons of urea.

Haldor Topsoe will be responsible for the engineering design of the ammonia plant with special emphasis on minimizing the environmental impact from production by featuring a SCR (selective catalytic reduction) DeNOx unit, which can treat the flue gas from the facility reducing NOx pollution. 

Besides engineering design and licensing, the delivery from Haldor Topsoe also includes proprietary hardware related to the ammonia process technology as well as catalysts.

The award of the contract is a continuation of a collaboration between Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Haldor Topsoe that currently have three other ammonia related projects under construction, according to company officials.

The fertilizer plant represents one of two major contracts in Turkmenistan that has been awarded to Haldor Topsoe this month. On August 26, Haldor Topsoe said it had won a major contract for the construction of a major plant focused on the conversion of natural gas into synthetic gasoline. 

This plant will be based on Haldor Topsoe’s TIGAS (Topsoe improved gasoline synthesis) technology, and will become the first full-scale large commercial facility in the world using this technology.