Germany's Uhde has been awarded the contract to design and build a tail gas treatment unit for the local Abu Qir Fertilisers & Chemicals Industries Company. The project aims to reduce pollution levels at Abu Qir's world-scale nitric acid plant near Alexandria.

Under the seven-month contract, Uhde will carry out the engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning (EPCC) of the new plant, which will use its proprietary EnviNOx process. The technology has been designed to convert pollutants nitrous oxide (N2O) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) into natural substances nitrogen, oxygen and water vapour.

The process will reduce Abu Qir's output of N2O by about 3,850 tonnes a year (t/y) and of NOx by 4,500 t/y, corresponding to a carbon dioxide (CO2)reduction of more than 1.1 million t/y.

Austria's Carbon Projektentwicklung is advising Abu Qir on implementing the project, which comes under the UN's clean development mechanism (CDM) programme. Carbon is specialised in funding, implementing and operating CDM projects to reduce a plant's emission levels.