South African gas company Afrox’s R300-million, 150 t/d air separation unit (ASU) in the Coega industrial development zone of the Eastern Cape, is more than 75% complete, Afrox MD Brett Kimber tells Engineering News.

Major equipment, including the cold box and storage vessels, will arrive on site this month.

“The project is well under way, with most of the civil work nearing completion. It is anticipated that most of the mechanical work will be completed before the end of this year and the ASU will be on stream in first quarter of 2015,” he reveals.

Kimber explains that the cold box is the core of an ASU, which is used to cryogenically separate air into nitrogen, oxygen and argon.

The cold box, which weighs almost 100 t, was designed and manufactured by Germany-based industrial gas and engineering company Linde Group.

Kimber said there were logistical problems with the delivery of the cold box to site, which included determining shipping routes and schedules, abnormal road transport to and from the ports in Germany and in Port Elizabeth, rigging and the availability of cranes to load and off-load the unit.

He highlights that, besides logistics, however, there have been “few challenges” that the project execution team could not overcome. Most of the risks and challenges were identified in the project development phase and mitigation plans to deal with them were put in place, resulting in their being tackled before they could become a major issue.

“The skill and experience of the Afrox and Linde project development and execution teams are, once again, demonstrated in the manner this project has been managed,” Kimber adds.

Afrox has significant market demand in the Eastern Cape and offers an extended product range to customers there. “We have long-standing relationships with industries and customers in the province. The investment in an ASU in the Port Elizabeth area was prompted by the need for additional capacity and to improve service delivery,” he explains.

Previously, clients in the Eastern Cape received goods from Afrox’s Western Cape facilities.

“The Eastern Cape ASU will provide confidence in the security of supply of critical process components, namely oxygen, nitrogen and argon. The capacity of the plant will allow for growth, without having to transport products from other regions at high distribution costs,” Kimber asserts.

This investment has also improved Afrox’s national ASU coverage, as the company has an ASU in every major economic centre of South Africa, including Johannesburg and Pretoria, in Gauteng; Durban, in KwaZulu-Natal; and Cape Town, in the Western Cape.

Kimber suggests that the R300-million investment could be the catalyst the Eastern Cape needs to realise the province’s aspirations of industrial development. “The ASU will support the development of opportunities and industrial growth, which will have a profound impact on the community,” he concludes.