Environmental Sustainability Updates

Bahrain's Gulf Petrochemical Industries Co. (GPIC) commissioned one of the world's largest and the Middle East's first carbon capture system at its Sitra petrochemical complex yesterday. The $55 million system should be able to capture as much as or more than 90%–some 450 metric tons per day–of the CO2 produced by the complex's oil refinery. Absorbed from flue gas, the captured carbon dioxide will then be used to synthesize methanol and urea, according to an Arab News report.

The project is one of the few concrete, commercial-scale applications of advanced carbon capture technology, as well as an example of international technology transfer. Known as the "KM CDR Process" (Kansai-Mitsubishi Carbon Dioxide Recovery Process), GPIC licensed the technology from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in January, 2008. Malaysia's Petronas Fertilizer was the first to make use of the process outside of Japan back in 1999 with the launch of a 200 mtpd system. The CRD technology has also been licensed to Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd. and the UAE's Ruwais Fertilizer Industries.

"This is yet another milestone towards the company’s commitment to a clean environment,” Sheikh Isa bin Ali Al-Khalifa, GPIC board chairman and an adviser to Bahrain's prime minister for oil and industrial affairs, was quoted as saying. “Such initiative confirms the company’s policy to preserve the environment by reducing human-caused global warming and the severe increases in temperatures and leading toward disastrous environmental consequences.”