Air Products, Lehigh Valley, Pa., has signed a long-term agreement with Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd. (BPCL) and will build, own and operate several industrial gas production facilities in Kochi, Kerala, India. The new industrial gas complex will provide hydrogen, syngas, nitrogen and oxygen for BPCL’s Kochi Refinery and its proposed petrochemicals complex. The facilities will support India’s largest-ever outsourced hydrogen requirement and will result in Air Products’ first hydrogen production facilities in India.

BPCL’s Kochi Refinery is currently undergoing a $2.6 billion integrated expansion project that will increase its crude refining capacity to 15.5 million metric tons per annum (approximately 310,000 barrels per day). Under the agreement, Air Products will provide a combination of the following plant technologies: two steam methane-reformer trains combining to produce approximately 16.4 tonnes per hour of hydrogen to be used in the production of cleaner burning transportation fuels and petrochemicals; a cryogenic syngas purification system to produce syngas, a mixture of purified hydrogen and carbon monoxide; steam generated from Air Products’ units for BPCL’s manufacturing process; an air separation unit to produce nitrogen and oxygen for the refinery and petrochemical complex; and a gas turbine to produce power for the Air Products facilities.

The new hydrogen facilities will be built through the global hydrogen alliance between Air Products and Technip, a project management, engineering and construction company.