Air Products Canada To Build And Operate A Second Hydrogen Plant In Edmonton, Alberta For Additional Supply To Petro-Canada's Refinery
Oil Sands Upgrading the Focus of Long-Term Hydrogen Supply Agreement
Lehigh Valley, PA- Air Products announced that its subsidiary, Air Products Canada Ltd., will construct a 105 million standard-cubic-feet-per-day (MMSCFD) hydrogen production plant to serve several customers in the Alberta Heartlands industrial corridor and the Petro-Canada refinery in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. This industrial gas facility will be the first in Canada to provide a sale of hydrogen for use in the upgrading of Canadian oil sands. The hydrogen and steam generating facility, to be owned and operated by Air Products under a long-term agreement, is expected on-stream in April 2008.
Oil sands are composed of bitumen, sand, water, and clay, and must be physically separated by a flotation process prior to further processing. The separated bitumen is processed into sour synthetic crude oil. With the addition of hydrogen, the sour synthetic crude oil is then further refined into value-added products like gasoline and diesel fuel.
This is the second facility to be constructed by Air Products to supply hydrogen to Petro-Canada's 135,000 barrel per day Edmonton refinery, as well as several additional customers in the Edmonton area. A 71 MMSCFD facility is currently under construction and is expected to be on-stream in April 2006. The two inter-connected hydrogen facilities will be adjacent to Petro-Canada's refinery and will help to produce cleaner transportation fuels and other petroleum products, eventually from 100% Canadian oil sands feedstock. The hydrogen supply arrangement is one of over 30 the company has undertaken with worldwide refiners in the past 15 years.
"We're proud to be the first industrial gas company to help make this vast resource viable for refining by supplying hydrogen for upgrading Canadian oil sands. On a worldwide basis, our production facilities provide refiners with the high reliability hydrogen supply that they need. With these projects, we extend that hydrogen supply to Canadian oils sands operators. This is our third plant to be constructed in Canada, and as more oil sands are processed, the need for hydrogen will continue to increase," said Scott Sherman, Air Products' vice president and general manager for Energy and Process Industries worldwide. "We're very pleased to extend our relationship with Petro-Canada and are poised to grow with the Canadian oil sands industry."
The Edmonton and Fort Saskatchewan area is one of three key Canadian refining centers. In addition to the two plants to be built in Edmonton, Air Products is also constructing a hydrogen plant in Sarnia, Ontario to be on-stream in May 2006. These projects are among additional Air Products hydrogen facilities currently being built in Port Arthur and Baytown, Texas; Convent, Louisiana; and Joliet, Illinois to be operational in 2006.
The second Edmonton hydrogen facility will be the 28th built under the global alliance between Air Products and Technip. This alliance continues to provide the worldwide refining industry with competitive technology, plus world-class safety with "over the fence" hydrogen supply. Technip provides the design and construction for hydrogen generation units while Air Products provides the gas separation technology. Air Products, through its extensive operating network, and Technip, from its large reference base, also bring effective operational and engineering knowledge to "design-in" high reliability and efficiency. The plants are operated and maintained by Air Products under long-term agreements with customers.
SOURCE: Air Products