Two commercial scale Stamicarbon Granulation units successful in operation in Egypt

Egypt's Alexandria Fertilizer Company and Egyptian Fertilizer Company have successfully put their Stamicarbon-design fluid bed granulation units in operation. Both granulation units have a capacity of 2000 mtpd urea.

Stamicarbon's granulation technology had been introduced already in modifications of existing units of Agrium of Canada and Grodno of Belarus. Egypt is the first country that sees two new commercial scale units in operation using Stamicarbon's granulation technology form the start.

Heart of this technology is the proprietary urea film spray nozzle. Unlike the sprouting or atomizing technology, the film spraying technology leads to particle growth by layering coating rather than by agglomeration. Advantages of this layered coating principle are the considerably less dust formation in the fluid bed granulator and less formaldehyde compared to other fluid bed granulation technologies. In case of the Agrium plant in Canada for example the amount of formaldehyde needed was after the conversion to Stamicarbon technology considerably lower than the amount of formaldehyde required in previous technology. The low dust formation leads to long washing intervals and low opacity at the vent stack. Product quality is equally good or even better (smoother, rounder) than product seen at other granulation units.

The Egyptian granulation units prove that Stamicarbon has successfully entered the urea granulation market with a competitive technology. Such move was triggered after another licensor that virtually dominated the granulation market had started restricting the licensing of its technology. Urea producers form now on enjoy the benefit of choice again. Given the experience of two 2000 mtpd units running, Stamicarbon is now confident in offering units for capacities up to 3500 mtpd on single line basis as well.

Stamicarbon congratulates AFC and EFC with the start-up of their new fertilizer plants and expresses the hope that the granulation units will continue to operate with great success.

Stamicarbon's urea granulation technology has been licensed for design and construction for a number of projects in the past years, e.g.:

Grodno Azot	Belarus	1200 tons per day
Egypt Helwan Fertilizers	Egypt	2000 tons per day
Egyptian Fertilizer Company (EFC)	Egypt	2000 tons per day
Alexandria Fertilizer Company (AFC)	Egypt	2000 tons per day
Agrium Fort Nitrogen Operations	Canada	1250 tons per day
Grodno Azot	Belarus	280 tons per day