Uhde has been awarded another contract in China, this time for the construction of four new coke oven batteries with a total capacity of 4.2 million tonnes of blast furnace coke for the Chinese steel producer Shougang Jingtang United Iron & Steel Company. This company is building a new integrated steelworks with the appurtenant coke plants on the Caofeidian peninsula (Hebei province), some 200km south-east of Beijing. Together, the four coke oven batteries, each of which will comprise 70 large-capacity coke ovens with a chamber height of 7.6 metres, will produce some 12,000 tonnes of coke per day from around 15,000 tonnes of coal. The first coke oven battery will come on-stream in late 2008.

In order to meet Chinese environmental standards, Uhde was also commissioned by the customer to engineer a coke oven gas desulphurisation plant with an integrated sulphuric acid plant. Uhde will use its proprietary VACASULF® process for the coke oven gas desulphurisation plant, which is not only characterised by a high degree of desulphurisation but also by comparatively low investment and operating costs.

Uhde's scope of services includes the entire basic engineering, supply of special equipment and supervision of the erection and commissioning activities. Uhde will also carry out the detail engineering in conjunction with its Chinese partner ACRE Coking & Refractory Engineering Consulting Corporation. The contract is worth some EUR40 million for Uhde.