Dow Benelux, Terneuzen
MRB members visiting Dow Terneuzen
Dow Terneuzen, for those coming from the north, is located at the end of the Westerschelde tunnel. During our visit, the tunnel was closed for half an hour exactly when we wanted to go through. The bus that was supposed to drive us around the site was also stuck in front of the tunnel. This disrupted the programme a bit, but it was flexibly resolved by the Dow people.
Dow Terneuzen is a very large site, you're talking about 440 hectares. It is the second largest production site of The Dow Chemical Company in the world. The three carckers with about 30 cracking cookers form the heart of the plant. These cookers are fed with naphtha or, if necessary, LPG. Crackers are: ethylene, propylene, butadiene and benzene, used for many plastics and chemicals. Ethylene capacity is the largest at 1,810,000 tonnes/year.
As it was a meeting of members of the KIVI Department of Measurement, Control and Operation Technology, Andre Schepens discussed the migration from an in-house Process Control System (PCS) to a market-bought system. Dow started developing its own PCS, the MOD 1 (Manufacturing Operating Discipline), in the 1960s. This system was further developed into MOD 5. In 2000, it was decided to stop further development of this proprietary system and the market looked for systems that met Dow's requirements. Now the MOD 5 system is being replaced in phases, by an ABB system, among others. The software implementation is under the auspices of Dow.
Before lunch, Paul van Kouteren explained what we would see during our bus tour. You understand that you don't go around a site like this on foot; for safety reasons, that's not allowed either.
in the afternoon, we drove by bus past the various installations and saw just how big the three Crackers were. We also saw the various polyethylene plants and other installations. The Braakmanhaven was not forgotten. In fact, naphtha and LPG are brought in by ship.
The last lecture was about greening the production process. At present, the cracking cookers produce large CO2 emissions. Among other things, Lauren Versagli explained what the roadmap to reduce this completely to zero looks like. "Crackling cookers" electrically heated and wind turbines to generate the electricity needed for this. The cookers will then look completely different.
To conclude, we went to the pub, the Dow café in the town of Terneuzen. This is run by volunteers. It was a nice and educational day. In the photo, you can see that a large number of students were also present, young KIVI.
Description
Dow Terneuzen is The Dow Chemical Company's second largest production site in the world and Dow's largest site in the Benelux. The naphtha crackers form the heart of the site. Here, the raw materials naphtha and LPG are converted into ethylene, propylene, butadiene and benzene. These are the main building blocks for many plastics and chemicals. The Benelux headquarters, one of Dow Europe's largest research departments and the Business Process Services Centre (BPSC) are also located in Terneuzen.
Location
Herbert H. Dowweg 5, 4542 NM HOEK
Organiser
Measurement, Control and Steering Technology
Name and contact details for information
Gerard Thomas