Recovery technique

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) is to license its carbon dioxide (CO2) recovery technology to the Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (GPIC), a Bahrain-based manufacturer of fertilisers and petrochemicals.

GPIC will use the technology to recover 450 metric tons of CO2 per day from flue gas emitted at its existing petrochemical plant and use the captured CO2 to increase urea and methanol production.

The MHI technology, can recover approximately 90 per cent of the CO2 in flue gas, by absorbing the CO2 into the company's KS-1 proprietary solvent, which the company jointly developed with the Kansai Electric Power Company.

GPIC was established in 1979 as a joint venture equally owned by the Government of the Kingdom of Bahrain, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation of Saudi Arabia and Petrochemical Industries Company, Kuwait.

In 1998, MHI delivered a urea fertiliser production plant with 1,700 mtpd (metric tons per day) production capacity to GPIC. The CO2 recovery system, slated for completion on January 2010, will be used at the same plant.