Blue Ammonia Technology – In Focus

This week on the podcast, host Lubna Salim is joined by Graham Hoar, vice president of Technology at KBR and leader of its global Ammonia, Syngas and Fertilizer business, for a discussion about blue ammonia technology. Listen as Graham tells us about what blue ammonia is, how it drastically reduces CO2, and why KBR’s superior blue ammonia process is a game-changer for customers and the environment.

Transcript

IN ORBIT: A KBR PODCAST

Season 2, Episode 8

Blue Ammonia Technology – In Focus

INTRODUCTION

Lubna Salim

Hello, I'm Lubna and this is In Orbit. Welcome to the podcast. We're glad you're with us. If you're new to the show, welcome. If you're tuning in again, thank you always for listening up and welcome back. This is a podcast for everyone, inside and outside our business, that talks about what's happening around the world and in our various industries. And that keeps us all connected and in each other's orbit.

Hey, everyone. Hope you are having a fantastic week and had a relaxed weekend, and I welcome you on this episode of In Orbit with our blue ammonia technology in focus. To explain why it's so important, we have Graham Hoar who's the vice president with KBR Technology and leads our global ammonia syngas and fertilizer business to tell you all about this amazing technology, which is a low-carbon technology.

Ammonia, as you are aware, is one of the highest produced inorganic chemicals, and today it's mainly used as a fertilizer in chemicals production and in mining. However, it is the enabler for energy transition in the future. So, therefore, it's really, really important because, as we are aware, the world and industries at large are slowly and steadily moving towards energy transition in larger interest of the environment.

So what is blue ammonia? Blue ammonia is a low-carbon ammonia that comes with a carbon capture utilization and storage, which we call CCUS, facility, and Graham is going to tell us on this episode why there is so much of conversation around blue ammonia, why it's so crucial, what blue ammonia technology does KBR offer and how it's superior, how it's going to lower our carbon emissions and it's going to help the environment.

Graham Hoar holds the position of vice president with KBR Technology and leads its global Ammonia, Syngas and Fertilizer business. He is based in London and has over 30 years of industry experience prior to joining KBR. Graham was with Nexant as vice president in the Middle East — he was based in Bahrain — and then vice president in Western Europe based in London. He also led its global C1 chemical and fertilizers activities.

Graham was previously with ICI in the petrochemicals division, ICI-DuPont in the nylon intermediates, and ICI Terra Nitrogen in the ammonia and fertilizers division in a number of technical, operational and leadership roles, and holds a first-class honors degree in chemical engineering from the University of Birmingham in the UK. He is also a chartered member of IChemE. So without further ado, let me lead you right into this episode. Welcome to the podcast, Graham.

Graham Hoar

Thank you, Lubna. A pleasure to be here.

Lubna Salim

So Graham, my very first question to you is that why is there such a conversation around blue ammonia, and why is it so crucial to begin with?

Graham Hoar

Okay. Carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to global warming in a significant way. So as a global society, we are trying to reduce our CO2 emissions. Ammonia plants account for about 2% of global emissions, so there's a relatively small number of ammonia plants and each of them has a significant CO2 footprint. Blue ammonia is a technology to capture the CO2 and not allow it to go into the atmosphere and, instead, it is sequestered underground or use for alternative uses. So by preventing the CO2 going into the atmosphere, we prevent the global warming phenomenon.

Lubna Salim

Right, right. That is also explanatory why it's so important to us, which brings me to my next question. I mean, what is blue ammonia technology and what are we offering at KBR and how is it superior?

Graham Hoar

Okay. KBR's Purifier Plus™ technology consumes less gas per ton of ammonia than any other technology available, apart from green ammonia, which is zero CO2. But in our blue ammonia technology, because we consume less gas, not only is it more energy efficient, not only does that mean you have low available costs, but also all the carbon in the gas, there's only one way out of the process and that's a CO2. So if you put less gas in, we make less CO2 per ton of ammonia than any other technology.

Lubna Salim

Wow, wow. That is amazing, and which also makes me question you as to how it's going to help lower carbon emissions and healthy environment, consequently.

Graham Hoar

Of course, if you make less CO2, then you have less to capture, less to compress, less to sequester underground and be responsible for monitoring, so all of those are beneficial. The other feature of our technology is that a large amount of it is captured as a pure 100% stream, so that's nice and easy to sequester. The primary reformer, the SMR [steam methane reformer], is 60% smaller in our Purifie rPlus technology than a conventional ammonia plant. So not only does that save you capital costs and variable costs, but also you have less CO2 coming out in the vent stream, which would be more expensive to capture. Then what we've developed is a means of firing that smaller reformer with hydrogen. So rather than making CO2, we provide the heat from hydrogen that we make within the process and we recycle that. In fact, we can capture 97% of all the CO2 without the need for post-combustion carbon capture unit.

Lubna Salim

Wow!

Graham Hoar

Or we can capture more than that — 98, 99% — if we do have a post-combustion carbon capture unit. The advantage of the latter there is that you'd have a smaller front end of the plant so you'd have lower capex and opex. But if you don't want to have a post-combustion capture unit, we can offer that with up to 97% carbon capture.

Lubna Salim

Okay. All right. Which also makes me curious as to how KBR scores in comparison to the other blue ammonia technologies, which I'm sure are also flooding the market.

Graham Hoar

Yeah. If you look at conventional ammonia plants, they would typically capture 60 to 65% as the pure stream. We capture about 80% of the pure stream, so our requirement to capture is much lower. There are about 470 ammonia plants licensed in the world. We've just sold our 250th, but there are people talking about autothermal reformers. Now out of that 470, 0 used in ATR [autothermal reformer], because it is well understood in the industry that this will be higher capex and opex, and it makes more CO2. But what people say who promote it is that they eliminate the primary reformer. But actually, as I just said, they can only get to that 97% that we are offering anyway, so it's not as if it's really an advantage. It just costs more and makes more and gives you more CO2 to sequester.

Lubna Salim

What is it that makes our process so unique?

Graham Hoar

The KBR process has three key beneficial reasons. That we are global, number one. I mentioned we have about half of ammonia capacity license uses KBR. The first one is the capital costs are lower. So our design has fewer and smaller equipment items, which means typically eight to 10% lower capital costs. Second reason is the variable costs are lower, which make it more energy efficient. The world's most energy efficient plant is a KBR plant in India and so less gas in means lower variable costs. It also, as I said, means less CO2 produced. Then the third feature is the reliability of KBR plants. Independent studies have shown that KBR ammonia plants have more online time per year on average, about two weeks a year more time online than competitive plants. In fact, the world's most reliable plant just clocked up nearly six years without a single moment of downtime, which is, I think, quite phenomenal. In the Netherlands that plant.

One of the other features of that reliability is that if you run a plant nice and steadily, not only do you make more tons of product, but when you switch an ammonia plant on and off, you have a flaring incident. So you have some significant period of time where you're flaring whilst you cool down and start up the plant. Now by avoiding trips, by avoiding shutdowns, you avoid the CO2 that's produced by the flaring during those trips so it's another benefit of having a more reliable and proven process.

Actually, the provenness of the KBR process is also very important for lenders as well as owners because they want to know that a process is well proven, and the ATR process I just said is totally unproven for ammonia. Whereas our process — we have existing purifier plant in operation, been running for about five years in Indonesia, very well. So we can take people, we can show them how well it works. Even the recycle of the hydrogen, which I mentioned for decarbonizing the CO2 — every single ammonia plant does that as part of the startup process until you've commissioned the ammonia synthesis loop. So again, it's well proven. So there's nothing that's risky, there's nothing that something that lenders may be adverse to. It's a very good choice to make to use KBR ammonia technology.

Lubna Salim

Absolutely, absolutely, Graham. Coming back to you, circling back to you, would you also walk us through the role that you are playing at KBR towards this initiative towards blue ammonia?

Graham Hoar

In KBR, we've had many decades experience, of course, in ammonia. So it's not me personally. It's a culmination of many, many years of knowledge in KBR, in various different ammonia. We've been at the forefront of developing a lot of big steps forward to ammonia technology over the years, and I see this as just the next chapter in this very successful story. As I said, we've innovated to modify the process to allow more CO2 to be captured without the need for post-combustion carbon capture, which is important for some clients. We've got some people who that's what they want to do.

Lubna Salim

Yes.

Graham Hoar

We've got others that say, "Actually, we prefer the lower capex and opex of the Purifier Plus, and putting in a small carbon capture unit is something that we would prefer to do and also we have more flexibility if we do that.” So we're working on providing a number of options for our customers to meet their needs.

In parallel, of course, the team are also looking at green ammonia options, I've said, is a zero CO2 technology. Right now it's more expensive, but we're working on this and initiatives to try and drive down the costs. But at the moment, green ammonia is more expensive than blue ammonia, which is why blue ammonia — there's a lot of interest in using blue ammonia to meet the considerable market growth that's expected. There's about 190 million tons of ammonia consumed globally, and we expect that to at least double and maybe triple as ammonia is used as a decarbonized fuel for both coal combustion in Japan, maybe as a marine fuel, maybe even as a decarbonized transcontinental train fuel.

Also, we've just launched our new ammonia cracking technology to make clean hydrogen from clean ammonia. So that's where you make the ammonia in a cost-advantage part of the world as clean ammonia. So you sequester the CO2 and you ship it to where the market needs the hydrogen. Maybe it's Korea, maybe it's Germany or elsewhere in Europe. So we're seeing a huge amount of interest. And to meet this market need, blue ammonia, really, not only is it more cost competitive, but it's proven at scale in a way that green ammonia is not yet proven at that sort of scale. So I think to meet the market demand, what we're going to expect to see in the near term — significant number of blue ammonia projects and the global team are working very hard with a number of opportunities worldwide to meet that market need.

Lubna Salim

Nice, and which brings us to the final question of this episode, which is what advantages are our customers going to have by deploying KBR's blue ammonia process?

Graham Hoar

Well, as I say, fundamentally, our process makes less CO2 than any other blue ammonia product on the market. So I think that's the first thing. Then we can capture an extremely high percentage of the small amount that we do make. And then there's the usual things: it's about minimizing capex, minimizing opex and minimizing downtime, which we already offer, and which is why we are the global number one. So I think you've got a compelling proposition to put to clients wishing to select a blue ammonia technology.

Lubna Salim

Amazing, amazing. That brings us to the end of the podcast, Graham, but I have a little surprise of Q&A for you, which is the rapid fire …

Graham Hoar

Sure.

Lubna Salim

... which I think will help our listeners and the people in and around KBR get to know a little different side to you. So I'll just shoot the questions. Graham, aisle seat or window for you?

Graham Hoar

I'm curious to know what's going on outside and what the land looks like below, so yeah, I generally prefer a window seat.

Lubna Salim

Amazing. What are you binge watching right now?

Graham Hoar

My wife and I were just watching “Life After Life” just this weekend.

Lubna Salim

Okay, amazing. When you're not working, you are?

Graham Hoar

I'm a keen cricket player and follower. I like most sports. I like football. My team is Brighton and Hove Albion, who are currently in the Premier League, although much of my life they've been in all positions of the league. So yeah, I love my sports. I love being outside walking and our dogs. I mean, I should mention our three wonderful children as well, and we have two dogs that we like to take for walks.

Lubna Salim

Wow. Amazing, lovely. One thing that nobody at KBR knows about you.

Graham Hoar

Well, not many people perhaps knew those last things and, well, I guess I'm very lucky to be here. My parents, when I was two years old, were prepared for the worst. They were told by doctors I wouldn't survive. I had meningitis and think — believe I was used as something as a Guinea pig, and they tried various novel medicines. And very luckily for me, I'm still here today.

Lubna Salim

That's a beautiful thought, I think, to end this episode on. I think that's what life is all about — what our work is all about — to bring hope and good vibes and the whole celebration of life.

Graham Hoar

Absolutely.

Lubna Salim

I think that also ties in well with our sustainable approach, and this technology, which is meant to make this planet a better, a cleaner and a safer place to live in. So thank you so much, Graham, for your time, for taking us through this amazing, amazing technology that we are offering at KBR. I learned a lot by just listening to you and I'm sure a lot of people are going to benefit from it. A lot of youngsters who look up to you are going to probably take it up as a career, and that's what we intend to do. So thank you so much, Graham, for your time.

Graham Hoar

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Lubna Salim

So that, ladies and gentlemen, was KBR's blue ammonia technology through Graham Hoar who has, in fact, in a very crisp and cool way, explained all that we have to offer and, most importantly, all the advantages that our customers are going to gain by deploying this technology.

If you are interested to know more about our blue technology, right now we have a series of webinars lined up. If you want to register for them, you could go onto www.kbr.com/STSwebinars, and get to know more about our technology from our experts. And please, please do share your feedback about this episode and all our episodes of In Orbit, and also your suggestions for any new ideas or on topics that you might want to hear and we would love to incorporate them.

So until next time, stay safe, stay healthy and make the planet a super safe place to live in. Bye.