The project
The Profertil project in Bahìa Blanca was at the time of its construction the largest single train plant in the world with the capacity of 3,250 tons/day of urea. Snamprogetti's proprietary Urea Technology was the first in the world to exceed the threshold of 3,000 tonnes of urea production per day, opening up new investment opportunities to exploit economies of scale with reliable, high-performance solutions.
The plant is about 1 km far from the town of Bahia Blanca and this represented a complexity to manage in its construction, to ensure compliance with local regulation and safety in every operational situation. The complex consists of one train of ammonia of 2,050 tons/day, one of urea of 3,250 tons/day and two of granulation of 1,850 tons/day. Includes all necessary utilities for process plants (such as water preparation, steam system, water cooling system, nitrogen system, etc.), one liquid ammonia storage (20,000 tons), two urea bulk halls (75,000 tons each), the jetty for the ammonia and urea product export systems, as well as the rail and truck loading system.
In 2006, it produced 1,280,718 tons of urea in one running year (360 days), reaching a daily average of 3,558 tons per day with a maximum peak of 3700 tons per day.
An extraordinary project
This project has become the reference for the subsequent design and construction of today’s biggest single train urea plants: at the end of 2010 Saipem has completed and put on stream the world largest single train unit, namely the Daharki Ammonia-Urea Complex for Engro in Pakistan, with the design production capacity of 3,835 T/D of urea; subsequently two more units, with the capacity of 3,850 T/D were designed, constructed and put in operation in Qatar (Qafco 5&6) allowing to overcome the threshold of 4,000 tons per day and launch the new train standard size for other projects.
Saipem is the front runner of the largest single line urea plant capacity worldwide, setting new records with safe, reliable, efficient and low carbon solutions.
