New Hydrogen Plant Under Construction at Kentucky Refinery

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Air Products and Chemicals, Incorporated (NYSE: APD) has started construction on a new hydrogen plant adjacent to Marathon Ashland Petroleum's Catlettsburg, Kentucky refinery, the nations second largest petroleum refinery. Design and construction on the natural gas-based hydrogen steam methane reformer was performed by Technip-Coflexip (Paris, France).

This project is part of an ongoing trend in the refinery industry identified by Industrialinfo.com. See related article; Industrialinfo.com Identifies Nearly $1 Billion in New Hydrogen Projects

Construction began early this year and should be operational by November 2003, producing 34 million standard-cubic-feet-per-day (MMSCFD) of hydrogen for the 220,000 barrel per day refinery. The plant will use sour crude feedstock in order to produce cleaner transportation fuels.

Catlettsburg Refining, LLC (Catlettsburg, Kentucky), a wholly owned subsidiary of Marathon Ashland Petroleum (Findlay, Ohio), has an agreement with Air Products and Chemicals, Incorporated to own, build and operate the new plant. Marathon Ashland Petroleum is a joint venture of Marathon Oil Company (NYSE: MRO) (Houston, Texas) and Ashland, Incorporated (Covington, Kentucky) (NYSE: ASH) and is the United States sixth largest refiner.

Air Products and Chemicals formed an alliance with Technip-Coflexip to provide design and construction services for steam methane reformers over the next ten years. The new hydrogen plant will be the twentieth plant to be built through this alliance.