US company Air Products and Chemical Inc. is developing coal for a methanol production facility in Bengalon, East Kalimantan. Company spokeswoman Jessica Cheng said Air Products would invest US$2 billion to build, own and operate the air separation, gasification, syngas (synthetic natural gas) clean-up, utilities and methanol production assets to produce methanol.
“In this project, Air Products will cooperate with PT Bakrie Capital Indonesia, a subsidiary of Bakrie Group, and PT Ithaca Resources, a subsidiary of PT AP Investment. Under a long-term on-site contract, both companies will supply the coal feedstock and have committed to offtake the methanol production for sale within Indonesia,” she said in a statement to Indonesia Business Post on May 17, 2022.
This facility – including Air Products’ proprietary Syngas Solutions™ dry-feed gasifier – will enable the company to produce nearly two million tons per year (TPY) of methanol from nearly six million TPY of coal. The project is expected onstream in 2024.
Indonesia is projected to be the fourth-largest economy in the world by 2030 and Air Products is very proud to continue to be a valuable, long-term partner for the country as it progresses in the development of its energy resources.
“We will obviously announce a specific project when it is at the right stage of development,” Cheng added.
“As Southeast Asia’s largest economy, Indonesia is committed to reducing its energy imports and efficiently converting abundant coal resources into high-value products. We are proud to have been awarded another world-scale gasification project, where we will deploy our capital, technology and operational expertise to help Indonesia meet these important goals,” said Air Products Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Seifi Ghasemi.
“This is another example of our long-term strategy to deploy capital into high-return strategic industrial gas projects,” he added.
In addition to the new project in Indonesia, Air Products is executing a number of gasification projects in China as well as the Jazan project in Saudi Arabia.
