The Linde Group has signed a contract with Pemex E&P to extend its supply of high-pressure, high-purity nitrogen to Pemex’s oil reservoirs in the Gulf of Mexico through 2027, a news release said.

Cía. de Nitrógeno de Cantarell, SA de CV (CNC), the local Linde affiliate, is now supplying a total of 1,500 million cubic feet of nitrogen per day from the nitrogen plant located on the Atasta Peninsula, near Ciudad del Carmen in the State of Campeche, to maintain pressure at the Cantarell and Ku Maloob Zaap oil reservoirs, the release said.

“We’ve continually upgraded our facilities and added new capacity to keep up with PEP's oil production demands,” said Pat Murphy, president of Linde Americas. “Our facility is now the largest nitrogen plant in the world.”

Over the next months and years, Linde plans to invest more capital to continually upgrade the facilities to ensure and maintain reliability of its nitrogen supply to optimize oil production. Pemex aims to recover 800 million barrels of oil in the next 11 years via this EOR process, the release said.

The nitrogen at the Linde plant is produced in five air separation units, using atmospheric air as input to an ultra-low temperature cryogenic process that separates the pure nitrogen from the oxygen and other minor components, the release said. The nitrogen is subsequently pressurized to 1,740 psi (120 bar) for delivery via steel pipelines over 100 km (60 miles (100 km) to the Pemex fields offshore.