Page 14 - NorthAmOil Week 07 2023

NorthAmOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES NorthAmOil

Freeport receives LNG vessel

TEXAS ON February 10, Freeport LNG welcomed its mid-March at the earliest.
first LNG vessel since the export facility was shut Meanwhile, some of Freeport’s biggest cus-
down following a fire and subsequent explosion tomers, JERA and Osaka Gas, have both revealed
in June 2022. that they do not expect to receive any shipments
The Kmarin Diamond, operated by a unit of until April at the earliest. The two companies,
BP, arrived at the US’ second-largest export plant, which are Freeport’s main buyers along with BP,
which is located on Quintana Island, Texas, TotalEnergies and SK E&S, have suffered mil-
according to ship tracking data from Refinitiv. lions of dollars of losses from the eight-month
US natural gas futures surged by 5% in outage at the plant.
post-settlement trade following the news of the When operating fully, Freeport can take in
vessel’s arrival combined with revised forecasts 2.1 bn cubic feet (59.5mn cubic metres) per day
for colder weather and greater heating demand of gas. However, since January 26, when federal
in late February. Meteorologists forecast that regulators granted permission for the company
temperatures would begin turning colder than to begin cooling parts of the plant, the facility
usual from February 24. has taken in an average of just 35mn cubic feet
Freeport has indicated that it will begin (991,200 cubic metres) per day of gas.
moving gas to one of the facility’s three liq- While a number of tankers have turned away
uefaction trains and received the green light from Freeport in recent weeks, the Kmarin Dia-
from federal regulators on February 9 to return mond, along with a handful of other vessels, has
ship-loading to service to create space in its been waiting in the US Gulf of Mexico to load the
storage tanks. super-chilled gas from the export facility. Indeed,
Nevertheless, many energy analysts several other vessels are expected to arrive at
have indicated that they do not expect the Freeport in the coming two weeks according to
export facility to reach full capacity until Refinitiv data.™

ENERGY TRANSITION

ExxonMobil selects technology providers

for planned blue hydrogen plant

TEXAS EXXONMOBIL has selected two providers of to what Honeywell deployed at Wabash Valley
decarbonisation technologies – Honeywell and Resources’ blue hydrogen plant in Indiana in
Topsoe – to support its planned blue hydrogen 2021.
facility at its Baytown refining and petrochem- Separately, Topsoe said its SynCOR hydrogen
ical complex on the Texas Gulf Coast. Blue technology would be used to enable ExxonMobil
hydrogen production is one of the lower-carbon to produce hydrogen at “mega scale”. The Syn-
methods of hydrogen production, entailing a COR autothermal reformer produces hydro-
carbon capture and storage (CCS) component gen by making methane react with oxygen and
to capture emissions from the process. steam.
Honeywell and Topsoe released separate ExxonMobil’s low-carbon hydrogen facil-
announcements on February 15, detailing how ity is anticipated to produce up to 1bn cubic
their technologies would be deployed at the feet (28.3mn cubic metres) per day of hydro-
project. gen. It will be delivered to the Baytown olefins
Honeywell said ExxonMobil would be plant and other facilities in the Houston area.
deploying one of its carbon capture technologies Replacing natural gas with hydrogen at the ole-
– the CO2 Fractionation and Hydrogen Purifi- fins plant could reduce the integrated complex’s
cation System – at the planned hydrogen facility. CO2 emissions by up to 30%, according to the
This technology is expected to allow ExxonMo- announcements.
bil to capture about 7mn tonnes per year (tpy) of Topsoe and Honeywell will collaborate
carbon dioxide (CO2), or more than 98% of the in order to deliver an integrated solution
hydrogen facility’s associated CO2 emissions. for the hydrogen facility. Topsoe noted that
According to the announcement, the carbon in its role as technology integrator, it will
capture technology will be integrated into the guarantee the carbon intensity of the facility
facility’s design. The system will use a pressure including both the hydrogen production and
swing adsorption cryogenic technology similar carbon capture components.™

P14 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 07 16•February•2023