Stamicarbon’s strength in urea licensing is based on the following elements:

• Experience
• Innovations
• Low cost
• Best urea Process
• Leadership
• World records

Experience

Stamicarbon has almost 60 years of licensing and urea experience:

• 220 licensed plants
• in more than 80 countries
• 55 revamp projects realized

Innovations based on fundamental research

A clear understanding of the ammonia/carbon dioxide/ urea/ water phase equilibria was achieved by carrying out extensive fundamental research into urea technology.

DSM’s Corporate Research Centre started the development of its urea process in the second half of the 1940s.

DSM’s first commercial urea plant was designed by Stamicarbon and based on DSM in-house research and development. It came on stream in 1956. A major aspect of this plant was the use of oxygen as a passivating agent, for which DSM secured patents. This feature enabled Stamicarbon and later on all its competitors, to use normal stainless steel as a construction material for the urea synthesis section.

The early successes paved the way for successive Stamicarbon inventions of revolutionary urea production steps:

• the CO₂ stripping process
• the Urea 2000plus™ pool condenser and pool reactor processes and
• the Megaplant concept
• Economic revamp concepts
• Urea granulation technology

In the late nineteen sixties Stamicarbon and DSM developed the highly successful CO₂ Stripping Technology. Currently Stamicarbon's developments related to pool condensation and the use of Safurex^® as construction material in urea plants are causing a paradigm shift in urea technology again.

Low cost

A special task force of experienced engineers has developed our current design, in close cooperation with material suppliers, equipment suppliers and contractors.
This design includes the advantages of the Urea 2000plus™ process, Safurex^®, the Stamicarbon Granulation Technology and the improvements based on learning's from the implementation of our revamp concepts.
It is estimated that the investment reduction for a new plant so obtained is 17% compared with the traditional CO₂ stripping process.

The very best urea process

Stamicarbons urea processes in all its various steps are:

• Reliable (high on stream times)
• Easy to operate
• Easy to maintain
• Competitive in its investment requirements
• Backed-up by an operating company
• Achieving the most stringent environmental requirements
• Stoichiometric in its feedstock consumptions
• Low in utility (energy) consumptions
• Producing high quality products
• Safe

Stamicarbon is Market leader

Historically Stamicarbon had a market share of about half of the total world market capacity. We have increased our market share to 70% of the capacity installed in the last decade. Today, Stamicarbon has licensed some 220 urea plants with a total annual capacity in excess of 50,000,000 tonnes. Expected annual growth is about 2.5%.

Licensed New Projects since 2000
CNOOC	China	2700 mtpd
PIDMCO, Assaluyeh I	Iran	3250 mtpd
QAFCO IV	Qatar	3200 mtpd
TF&C	Turkmenistan	1050 mtpd
KDIC	Iran	2000 mtpd
SAFCO IV	Saudi Arabia	3250 mtpd
EFC	Egypt	1925 mtpd
AFC	Egypt	1925 mtpd
PIDMCO, Assaluyeh II	Iran	3250 mtpd
HELWAN	Egypt	1925 mtpd

Licensed Revamp Projects since 2000
YUNTIANHUA	China	680 mtpd exp.
ABF	Malaysia	446 mtpd exp.
PCS	USA	635 mtpd exp.
SAFCO	Saudi Arabia	350 mtpd exp.
QAFCO	Qatar	1000 mtpd exp.
SHIRAZ	Iran	300 mtpd exp.
SKW	Germany	400 mtpd exp.
PETROCHINA NINGXIA	China	870 mtpd exp.
PETROCHINA DAQING	China	680 mtpd exp.
PETROCHINA URUMQI	China	870 mtpd exp.
GEOMAXIMA	China	700 mtpd exp.

For more details on our realized projects see our Reference list.

World records

• Production record
  Qafco IV in Qatar with a design capacity of 3200/3600 mtpd has a production today of more than 3600 mtpd, which is the highest production rate of any plant in the world.
  
  
• Run length record
  The world record run length was reported by Khorasan Petrochemical Company in Bojnurd, Iran. From June 27th 1999 the KPC urea plant operated for an uninterrupted period of 866 days. The design capacity of this unit is 1500 mtpd.
  Modern Stamicarbon urea plants have excellent performance figures. On stream times of above 350 days per year are quite common.
  
  
• Life time record
  Another remarkable feat of Stamicarbon's urea technology is the long lifetime of its strippers. Iffco of Kalol, Gujarat, in India has reported a stripper lifetime of 28 years. The construction material of this stripper was 2RE69 or CrNiMo 25-22-2.