New Zealand Refining Co. Ltd. (NZRC) has let a contract to BOC New Zealand Ltd., an industrial gases subsidiary of Germany’s Linde Group, to build a plant aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions from operations at its 107,000-b/d Marsden Point refinery at Northland on the North Island’s east coast.
The $40 million (NZ) plant will take CO2 byproduct from the refinery—New Zealand’s only—and purify it for use across a range of industries, including food and beverage, dairy, horticulture, and pulp and paper, NZRC said.
The CO2 plant is scheduled to be fully operational by yearend 2015.
Sjoerd Post, NZRC’s chief executive officer, emphasized that the commitment to improve its environmental performance remains a key part of the company’s business strategy.
“This investment gives us the capability to reduce CO2 emissions by more than 50,000 tonnes/year and is a neat fit with our $365 million (NZ) Te Mahi Hou (TMH) project, which will reduce CO2 emissions by around [an additional] 120,000 tpy,” Post said.
Approved in February 2012 and initially named the Continuous Catalyst Regeneration Platformer project, NZRC’s TMH project is designed to increase high-quality fuel production by replacing the refinery’s semiregeneration platformer and enabling it to process increased volumes of a wider range of crudes more effectively and efficiently (OGJ Online, Mar. 5, 2014; Mar. 4, 2014).
The TMH project remains on schedule for commissioning in late 2015, the company said.
