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Air Products Qudra breaks ground on integrated industrial-gas hub in Saudi Arabia

| By Mary Bailey

Air Products (Lehigh Valley, Pa; www.airproducts.com) announced that Air Products Qudra, a joint venture (JV) between Air Products and Qudra Energy, in collaboration with the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, held a ceremonial groundbreaking to mark the start of work in building a world-class, fully-integrated industrial gases hub in the Jubail Industrial City.  

The significant investment by Air Products Qudra involves building, owning and operating a world-scale steam methane reformer (SMR) to produce hydrogen; an air separation unit (ASU) to produce oxygen and nitrogen; hydrogen pressure swing adsorption (PSA) units to recover hydrogen from off-gases; and the installation of comprehensive pipeline networks to connect and transport industrial gases to the broad refinery and chemical customer base in the region. 

When fully built out in 2023, the industrial gases hub will reliably serve the continued growth of Jubail Industrial City and support the growing prosperity of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and will enable Jubail to achieve higher values for off-gases and introduce new technologies to convert low-value feedstocks into high-value products. 

The SMR hydrogen production plant to be built, owned and operated by Air Products Qudra, will match the largest ever built by Air Products. The SMR, which will serve refineries and petrochemical industries to fulfil the growing demand in the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia, will feature the latest technology to maximize energy efficiency and reduce emissions, and include optimal heat integration to reduce and lower feedstock consumption. The plant configuration and deployed technologies will also contribute to Air Products’ sustainability goals of reducing energy consumption and emissions. 

The Jubail facility will include an ASU and PSAs and the location will serve as the pipeline hub for industrial gases to be supplied to individual customer connections in the region. 

This investment includes building the second hydrogen fueling station in Saudi Arabia at the site. Saudi Aramco and Air Products inaugurated the first hydrogen fueling station in Saudi Arabia at Air Products’ new Technology Center in the Dhahran Techno Valley Science Park in June 2019.