Wuhuan bids lowest in Talcher 'syngas' tender

China's Wuhuan Engineering has bid lowest in a tender to produce synthetic gas ('syngas') from domestic coal in the Talcher 'coal hub' of Dharmendra Pradhan's home state Odisha.

When Talcher Fertilizers opened price bids on March 5, Wuhuan bid Rs4750cr ($678m) leaving rival L&T far behind with a quote of Rs7500cr ($1.07bn). Wuhuan, a subsidiary of China National Chemical Engineering Group, is expected to get the LoA early next month (April), making this its first project in India.

Wuhuan will use Shell technology to convert 400,000 t/y high ash content coal from the nearby Bhuvaneshwari mines with 100,000 t/y petroleum coke from IndianOil’s refinery at Paradip to produce 189,000 cm/hr 'syngas' that will be used to produce 2200 t/d ammonia gas to be converted to 3850 t/d urea fertiliser pellets. When it receives the LoA, Wuhan will have 33 months to set up the new facility.

For conversion of the syngas to ammonia and then urea, Wuhuan is competing in a separate tender issued by Talcher Fertilizers against rivals Toyo Engineering, L&T and Tecnimont. All of them submitted bids by August 20 (2018) but price bids are yet to be opened.