OCI Global invests in biomethane production project in US

Renewable fuel producer OCI Global has joined hands with Waga Energy to produce biomethane in Beaumont, Texas in the US.

PHOTO: OCI Global's Beaumont plant is an integrated methanol and ammonia production facility located on the Gulf Coast near Beaumont, Texas in the US. OCI

“The project will involve installing a system to capture gases emitted from the decomposition of organic waste,” WAGA Energy said.

The captured gases will be converted into biomethane using Waga Energy’s technology.

Waga Energy has developed a modular unit that produces biomethane by purifying biogas from landfill waste.

Raw biogas injected into the plant is filtered using membrane-based technology to separate carbon dioxide and other impurities from the biogenic gas. The gas is further treated using a process called cryogenic distillation to separate nitrogen and oxygen from the methane molecules, Waga Energy explains.

This process can produce biomethane with 98% purity, the company claims.

Waga Energy has not specified the potential capacity of its Beaumont plant, but it has 23 operational modular biomethane plants around the world, including one in the US. According to its website, the US plant can produce 207,000 mmBtu/year of biomethane.

Waga Energy will operate the modular unit in Texas, while OCI Global will “own the biomethane production," Waga Energy said.

Biomethane will be injected into the existing natural gas grid. OCI Global will then use biomethane to produce biomethanol through its HyFuels brand.

OCI Global operates a methanol plant in Beaumont, where it produces biomethanol from existing grey methanol infrastructure using a mass-balance approach.

Mass balancing is an accounting method to track flows of sustainable feedstock in the supply chain. In this approach, the biomethane is injected into the grid but not segregated from the natural gas in the system, nor are the biomethanol molecules segregated from the grey methanol during storage and transportation, OCI Hyfuels told ENGINE last year. The accounting method helps to keep track of the molecules in the supply chain by quantifying the feedstock used during production, distribution, blending and bunkering.

OCI Global recently completed the biomethanol bunkering of an X-Press Feeder vessel in Singapore. Last year, it bunkered the A.P. Moller-Maersk vessel, Laura Maersk, in multiple ports, marking the world's first-ever biomethanol bunkering operation.

By Konica Bhatt

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