GPIC, Masdar sign carbon capture pact

Original Article

GULF PETROCHEMICAL INDUSTRIES Co (GPIC) has signed an agreement with Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s clean energy initiative, to install carbon capture and recycling at GPIC’s fertiliser plant at Sitra, Bahrain.



The companies plan to scrub CO2 from the fertliliser plant’s flue gases and use the captured gases as feedstocks to produce urea and methanol. The project, which is eligible for credits under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), will capture up to 100,000 t/y of CO2 starting 2010.



According to GPIC’s general manager, Abdul Rahman Jawahery, the company is the first petchems and fertiliser company in the region to capture greenhouse gases under the CDM. Sultan Al Jaber, Masdar’s chief executive officer, says: “The CDM provides an incentive to GPIC to develop the CO2 capture project, and we expect this project to pave the way for more carbon reduction initiatives in the industry.”



GPIC is equally owned by the government of Bahrain, the state-owned Saudi petrochemicals company Sabic, and Petrochemical Industries Company, Kuwait. The Sitra complex produces 400,000 t/y of ammonia, 600,000 t/y of urea and 400,000 t/y of methanol.