Process Description:

The ammonia process is the low energy natural gas reforming process. The ammonia plant is
based upon producing liquid ammonia. Under normal operating conditions, liquid ammonia is delivered
to battery limits at 30 C for use as feed to the urea plant. In the event of urea plant is not operating, the
ammonia product can be delivered to the battery limits at -33 C for offsite storage at atmospheric
pressure. By products carbon dioxide for feed to the urea plant is delivered to the battery limits at 38 C
and 1.9 Kg/cm2.

The process is described in the following sections:

Raw Synthesis Gas Purification:

The raw synthesis gas is produced from natural gas in four major steps:

1. Compression, preheating and final desulfurization of the natural gas feed.

2. Partial reforming to an intermediate level of the hydrocarbons in the feed in the Primary
reformer furnace.
3. Final Reforming in the Secondary reformer, where the methane is reduced to a low level while
introducing sufficient air to provide quantity of nitrogen for ammonia synthesis.
4. Conversion of carbon monoxide and steam in the reformed gas to carbon dioxide and hydrogen
in water-gas shift reactors.

Natural gas is used for feedstock and fuel. The natural gas at 7.5 Kg/cm2 passed through a feed stock
knock-out drum to remove suspended solids and liquids. The natural gas is split in two streams feed gas
and fuel. The fuel gas portion is combined with recovered gas from the synthesis to provide ammonia
plant net firing requirements. The feed gas portion is compressed to 46.0 Kg/cm2 in the steam turbine
driven two stage centrifugal natural gas compressor. A NG compressor interstage cooler and NG
compressor interstage knockout drum are provided.

The sulfur compounds contained in small amounts in the feed gas are removed by catalytic reaction with
the hydrogen in the gas over a cobalt-molybdenum catalyst followed by absorption with zinc oxide. The
compressed natural gas is heated to 399 C in the convection section of the primary reformer. The
natural gas and hydrogen combined streams then flow down through the hydrotreater, hydrogenating
the organic sulfur compounds to H2S over a bed of catalyst. The reacted gas then flows through the
desulfurizer, where the zinc oxide absorbs the H2S, producing an effluent stream containing less than
0.1 ppm by volume of hydrogen sulfide.

The 388 C desulfurized feed is mixed with 44.0 kg/cm2 and 390 C high pressure steam, part of which was
used to strip the process condensate beforehand. The steam is added in the ratio of 3.5 moles of steam
per mole of organic carbon. The feed gas/steam ratio is preheated to 621C in the convection section of
the primary reformer, recovering heat from the furnace flue gas, after preheating, the mixture is
distributed to the catalyst tubes suspended in the radiant section of the primary reformer furnace and
passes down through the nickel reforming catalyst. The heat for the endothermic reforming reaction is
supplied by fuel gas through burners located between the rows of the tubes. The pressure at the outlet
of the catalyst tubes is 37.2 Kg/cm2. The reformed gas continues to pick up heat in these risers and gas
temperature at the primary reformer exit to approximately 833 C.
The convection heat is designed to attain maximum thermal efficiency by recovering heat in the
convection section from the flue gases.

The convection heat is used for the following:

1. Process air/steam feed preheater.

2. Steam/natural gas mixed feed preheater.
3. Natural gas feed preheater for desulfurization.
4. Steam superheating
5. Reformer fuel preheat
6. Combustion air preheat for the reformer burners.

The reformed gas flows from the outlet of the primary reformer through the primary reformer effluent
transfer line, to the secondary reformer. There it is mixed with a quantity of air to provide the
stoichiometric nitrogen requirement of the ammonia synthesis reaction. The heat liberated by the
combustion part of the partially reformed gas supplies the energy needed to complete the reforming
actions. The resultant gas then flows down through a bed of nickel reforming catalyst. Due to
endothermic reforming reaction, the reformed gas temperature leaving the secondary reformer is about
1013 C.