Published January 1983
In spite of world overcapacity for nitrogen fertilizers, the construction of new urea plants and the retrofitting of old plants continues worldwide. Three urea processes--Stamicarbon, Snamprogetti, and Mitsui Toatsu--have dominated the licensing of new plants worldwide for many years.
A new process offered for license by Montedison promises to be economically equal to the other options. SRI has evaluated Montedison's Isobaric Double Recycle (IDR) Process and compared it with the Stamicarbon CO2 Stripping Process (it is the one with the most similarities). We estimate the investment to be slightly lower than that for the Stamicarbon process, which requires the lowest investment of the three principal commercial processes. However, in terms of estimated net operating costs and product values, the two processes appear to be very closely comparable.
