South African gas provider Afrox’s Nigerian sister company BOC Gases Nigeria this week officially opened a compact and highly-modularised air separation unit (ASU) for bulk nitrogen production, in Port Harcourt.

BOC Gases Nigeria MD Johnson Idowu said the 13 ton-a-day facility would supplement existing capacity and significantly strengthen the company’s position as a supplier of industrial gases in Nigeria – a major growth region.

“This investment is also crucial to our strategy of growing and expanding our operations throughout West Africa,” he noted.

Afrox ASU project manager Jabulani Nkosi added that the plant components were designed and manufactured in the US, before being shipped to India for assembly and testing.

The South African gas company had worked with a US-based cryogenic plant manufacturer to design and develop the advanced ASU, which also featured a small oxygen component for cylinder oxygen medical gas.

“The need was identified for an automatic modular, prefabricated, skid-mounted ASU to meet harsh African operating conditions around four years ago. An existing design was modified and adapted, resulting in this new and unique ASU concept being developed,” Nkosi explained.

Following a successful plant performance test in India, in January, the ASU was packaged and shipped to Port Harcourt in three 40 ft containers, before being installed and successfully commissioned in May.

“The on-site erection and commissioning process, which took three weeks, was considerably quicker and more efficient than that of a nonmodular plant, which typically takes two months. A significant amount of time was saved by prefabricating the plant and conducting performance tests in the factory in India,” he commented.

BOC Gases Nigeria is a subsidiary of international gases, engineering and technologies company, the Linde Group.