Air Products announced on Thursday it has signed a definitive agreement for a long-term on-site contract for a world-scale coal-to-methanol production facility in Bengalon, East Kalimantan, Indonesia.
Under the long-term on-site contract, PT. Bakrie Capital Indonesia, part of the Bakrie Group, and PT. Ithaca Resources, part of the PT. AP Investment, will supply the coal feedstock and have committed to offtake the methanol production for sale within Indonesia.
Air Products will invest about US$2 billion to build, own and operate the air separation, gasification, syngas clean-up, utilities and methanol production assets to produce methanol for Bakrie and Ithaca. This facility—including Air Products’ proprietary Syngas SolutionsTM dry-feed gasifier—will enable nearly 2 million tons per year of methanol to be produced from nearly 6 million tons per year of coal. The project is expected onstream in 2024.
Seifi Ghasemi, Air Products’ chairman, president and chief executive officer, said, “As Southeast Asia’s largest economy, Indonesia is committed to reduce its energy imports and efficiently convert 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.
“This is another example of our long-term strategy to deploy capital into high-return strategic industrial gas projects,” he added.
Air Products continues its leadership in gasification projects around the world. 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.