Construction of Bayer’s 300-kt/yr TDI plant in Dormagen on schedule for start-up in 2014

By Louise McHenry    

The construction of Bayer MaterialScience’s 300 kilotonne-per-year TDI (toluene diisocyanate) plant in Dormagen, Germany, remains well on schedule for its completion in the second half of 2014, Bayer executives told UTI during a 13 August visit to the site.

The plan to develop a world-scale plant at Dormagen has been in development since 2008 and Bayer was given a permit from the city of Cologne to build and operate the facility in January of this year. A ‘topping-out’ ceremony was held at the site on 19 July.

Bayer is building the facility in Dormagen Chempark, an industrial park owned by Currenta, a 60/40 joint venture between Bayer and Lanxess. As well as those companies, other businesses on site include Linde and Air Liquide. Petrochemical manufacturer Ineos occupies a large site beside the industrial park.

€400m investment

Each of these companies will provide starter materials for the TDI plant. Linde and Air Liquide will provide the carbon monoxide (CO) required to react with chlorine (supplied by Bayer) to produce phosgene, while Ineos will supply nitric acid, which is used along with toluene to make TDI-precursor TDA (toluenediamine).

 Total investment in the project will be about €400 million, of which €250 million will be for the plant itself, and a further $150 million will be spent on related peripheral and utility facilities, according to Steffen Kühling, senior vice president, polyurethanes, Bayer MaterialScience. This includes a €100 million investment in an adjacent Air Liquide CO plant, which is currently under construction, as well as strengthening the supply of basic chemicals from other locations in the Chempark. Kühling noted that having all the precursors available on one site is one of the huge advantages to the development of the facility.

Currently, Bayer MaterialScience produces TDI in a different location in the Chempark but also in Brunsbüttel, more than four hours north of Dormagen on the coast of Germany. This means TDA produced at Dormagen had to be transferred there, which had both a cost and environmental detriment. The Brunsbüttel site is to be closed, while the 80 staff currently employed in Dormagen will transfer to the new facility, with an extra 20 people to be recruited.

X-head: Gas-phase technology

The plant is the second to use Bayer’s gas-phase phosgenation process; the first being its 250-ktpa TDI plant in Caojing, near Shanghai, that came on stream in October 2011. The building of the site in Dormagen brings this solution full-circle back to where the technology was first developed. Bayer ran a gas-phase phosgenation pilot plant at the Chempark from 2004-2011, Rainer Bruns, startup manager of the TDI unit, told UTI during the visit. This pilot plant has now been decommissioned and will be demolished at some point in the near future.

The main advantage of gas-phase phosgenation technology is that it reduces solvent consumption by around 80%, cutting energy consumption by up to 60% and reducing CO2 emissions by 60 000 tonnes, noted Tony Van Osselaer, member of the Bayer MaterialScience board of management. Energy efficiency is a key part of Bayer’s corporate strategy, the executives said. The chemicals giant has a companywide policy to reduce CO2 levels by 40% by 2020. Originally this target was 20%, but the company hit the 25% mark in 2011, Van Osselaer noted.

Kühling added that while phosgenation in the gas phase is more energy-efficient than in the solvent phase, it also poses problems as the gas phase is very short. “You have to do it in the right way,” he noted, otherwise there’s a possibility that the entire process would be at risk. But, the executives pointed out, optimising this process is exactly what the company has been doing for the last ten years in the 30 ktpa-pilot plant in Dormagen.

Interdepartmental efforts

Work being carried out on the new facility involves two of Bayer’s business units: Bayer MaterialScience, which mainly deals with operational activities and planning, and Technology Services, a department that provides engineering and project management expertise to Bayer projects. During UTI’s visit, Christian Wissel, program manager, vice president, Technology Services, highlighted his role working in parallel with Bruns, who works under the MaterialScience umbrella.

Wissel used an analogy of two people being in the same car. Currently Wissel is in the driving seat, taking responsibility for the progression of the project while it is in the construction stage, though he works closely with Bruns. In 2014 as the facility reaches full mechanical completion and eventually starts up, Bruns will be at the wheel, coordinating the successful initiation of the plant.

Local and global focus

Van Osselaer also noted that the work being done showcases a “unique” skill in the industry, scaling up from 30 kt/yr to 300 kt/yr. “If you could go to the demo plant and then look at the big plant being built, you would see what kind of engineering capabilities have to be available to do that,” he said.

Many of the contractors working on the construction of the plant are local companies. This provides a boost to the regional economy, the Bayer executives noted, though this is simply an added benefit, rather than a purposeful choice. The contractors were selected primarily for their safety and quality record, as well as their cost competitiveness and the ability to carry out the specific needs of the project, program manager Wissel said. He added that Bayer does not tend to look for a sole EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractor, but rather looks for companies that are best in each specific area.

The project has come along in good time with everything on schedule. Safety is a major priority, the executives said. So far there has been zero OSHA recordables, which is a ratio between recordable incidents against hours worked, Wissel said. So far, some 350 000  man-hours have beem worked on the site and the team is obviously proud of this record. Safety on the worksite is paramount, Wissel emphasised. ‘Near-misses’, that is incidents that could have the potential to become unsafe, are also closely monitored and then used as an occasion for further training in order to ensure that safety is maintained.

Wissel pointed out that while the plant’s construction may be a local and regional project, the procurement of equipment is a global endeavour. Out of around 400 pieces of equipment on the site, around 75-80 come from Asia. The equipment is competitive in terms of cost, but also meets the standards of quality that Bayer expects. Kühling noted that it does take time for the company to select the most appropriate suppliers from around the world, and Bruns added that Bayer has experience of procuring equipment for this type of plant due to the Chinese project.

 Communication is key

Bayer held a topping-out ceremony on 19 July to celebrate the completion of the plant shell construction. Bayer MaterialScience and participating contractors invited guests from politics, industry, public administration agencies and the local community to the ceremony.

The executives pointed out that throughout the development of the project, communication with the local community was one of their top priorities. “Society has changed,” Van Osselaer noted. “You have to do much more upfront communication and be open about what you want to do [when building a chemical plant].”

Kühling added, “Right from the beginning we said ‘we have to make this programme very transparent to all stakeholders’.” This involves outlining to each sector of the community – local residents, politicians, suppliers – what this chemical plant will mean for them. He said that this openness was beneficial for the project. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, even commended the company for its transparent approach, Kühling said.