Chapter 138: An Opportunity in Waste

Bangalore

24 August 1950

The Standard-Vacuum drawings arrived from New York in a sealed diplomatic bag and were meant to go straight to Savarkar in the Ministry of Power. They reached Bangalore because a clerk at the company addressed it to the PM, South Block and the envelope, with its MOST URGENT announcement, got forwarded to Ram in Bangalore.

He unrolled the first sheet on a drafting table in the old IISc library. It was a plot plan of the Visakhapatnam refinery, drawn in the clean, confident hand of an American design office. It showed crude tanks and distillation columns, a catalytic cracker, and a long row of product spheres by the jetty. At the far corner of the site, set well back from everything else, stood a tall thin cylinder marked in block capitals: FLARE STACK, 150 FT.

"What does that burn?" he asked.

Dr. Ghatage, who had come over from BAL to bring him tea, looked at the sheet. "Waste gas, Prime Minister. Every refinery has one. Light hydrocarbons come off the distillation, more than the plant can use for its own heaters. They are piped to the stack and burned."

"Burned and not sold?"

"There is nothing to sell them to."

Ram turned the sheet over. The back was blank. He turned it again. For a few minutes, he just sat looking at the small rectangle at the edge of the paper.

He had read the Burmah files in March, and they had contained a number he had not understood at the time. Digboi, India’s oldest refinery, lit the Assam night with a flare that pilots used to find the valley in cloud. The Burmese fields at Yenangyaung had flared before the war, and the British had blown them up in 1942 without ever calling it waste. And the AIOC accounts, which he now saw as a director, carried a footnote he had passed over: Associated gas produced, Khuzestan fields: not metered; disposed of by flaring.

Not metered. A company that did not count something did not value it.

"Dr. Ghatage. How many people are working in Bangalore at present? Total."

"Foreign specialists, seven hundred and six. Indian apprentices and staff, perhaps five thousand."

"Chemists among them?"

"A good number. Dr. Sharma has the roster."

"Ask them to come to the library tomorrow, any who can leave their benches. I am not sure what I want to ask. I would like to ask it of people who will tell me if it is stupid."

"Prime Minister, they will tell you if it is stupid."

"Good," Ram said. "That is what they are for."

They came the next morning, a little over forty of them. They sat on benches and window-sills and the library’s long oak tables, and the room smelled of chalk and old paper. The German contingent was on the left and the Japanese on the right, as it always was. Ram hoped that one day, after researching together for so long in a foreign land, they would mingle naturally as they did among their groups now. Dr. S.S. Bhatnagar, the Director-General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, a stout, genial, white-moustached chemist who had been fetched from Delhi on the dawn flight, sat by himself at the front with his hands on his knees. Sarabhai had come in late and stood at the back by the door. Freytag, the thermodynamicist, had brought a slide rule and was polishing it on his sleeve.

Ram did not stand at the lectern. He sat on the edge of the table with the Visakhapatnam plan in his lap.

"I am a chemist by degree," he said, "and a poor one, if you were to ask Professor Williamson, lately of Allahabad University, for I have not been a chemist for a long time now. I want to ask a stupid question, and I would like an honest answer. At every refinery on earth, and at every oilfield I have seen photographed, gas is burned in a tall chimney. Why?"

A short silence. Then a spare, grey, long-fingered German of about fifty rose on the left. He had been a department head at Leuna, in the great Haber-Bosch complex, and had spent three years after the war in a Swiss pension writing letters nobody answered. His name was Brandt.

"Because it is cheap to burn, Prime Minister, and expensive to save."

"Explain it to me as you would to a layperson."

"Gladly." He had a dry, precise English and a way of looking at the ceiling while he calculated. "Take an oilfield. A well produces oil under pressure. As the oil rises and the pressure falls, the gases dissolved in it come out of solution, as bubbles come out of a bottle of soda water when you open it. This is called associated gas. It comes up with the oil, whether anyone wants it or not. It is at low pressure, perhaps a few atmospheres. It is wet, which means it carries heavy vapours that condense in a pipe. And the field is in a desert, a hundred miles from any town that could use it."

"And the oil is worth money."

"The oil is worth everything. A company that wishes to sell the gas must gather it from a hundred wells, compress it, dry it, lay a pipeline, and find a buyer at the other end. It must spend more than the gas will ever earn. So, the company lights the gas at the wellhead and goes on pumping oil. I have seen the sky over Masjed Soleyman. It burns day and night."

"How much?"

Brandt glanced at Freytag, who was already scribbling on a pad. "You must tell me the output of the Iranian fields, Herr Freytag."

"About thirty-two million tons last year," Freytag said. "Perhaps two hundred and thirty million barrels. The Khuzestan fields are rich in gas. I would guess seven hundred cubic feet of gas per barrel."

"Which is... four to five hundred million cubic feet a day," Brandt said. He looked a little startled, as men do when the arithmetic comes out larger than they thought. "Burning in the air, Prime Minister, every day. More than all the coal gas we made in Germany before the war."

"What is in it?"

"Mostly methane. The same gas that rises from a marsh. Then ethane, then propane and butane, then a thin light petrol the oilmen call natural gasoline. From a gas this rich, we could take three to five gallons of liquids from every thousand cubic feet. Over four hundred million cubic feet a day, that is..." He stopped and did it on his fingers. "Well over a million tons a year of propane and butane alone."

Nobody in the room said anything.

"A million tons," Ram said. "Burning."

"Yes."

"And what are propane and butane good for?"

"Everything, Prime Minister. They are fuels. A cylinder of the liquefied gas, perhaps fifteen kilograms, will cook a family’s meals for a month. In America, they are sold in steel bottles to farms without mains. They run lamps, stoves, small engines. And they are chemical raw material. Ethane makes ethylene, ethylene makes plastics. Propane makes the base of a hundred solvents and fibres."

Ram thought about the women he had seen in the Lyari camp, and in a hundred village lanes from Muzaffarpur to Madras, kneeling over cow-dung fires with their eyes streaming. He thought of the forests that had gone to fuel Calcutta’s kitchens. He also thought about how, in that other life, LPG was as ubiquitous as cigarettes.

He had been a corporate analyst, albeit in the field of software, but had he really never thought what exactly LPG is. A fragment of memory came to him, so GK book in childhood, naturally LPG is odourless; this compound is mixed in so that a leak can be detected by smell. A third of the country burns dung that should be fed to the soil and wood that should hold the hillside.

"If I compress the gas," he said slowly, "enough pressure, and it turns to liquid. That is simple physics."

"That is not quite right, Prime Minister," Brandt said, without any unkindness. "May I?"

He went to the blackboard. He drew a graph, a single curve with a crest on it.

"Every gas has what we call a critical temperature. Above that temperature, no pressure will make it liquid, however great. For propane, it is ninety-seven degrees Celsius. At the temperature of a warm day, propane turns to liquid under about eight atmospheres. Butane, under two. Those can be bottled in a steel cylinder with a thick wall. That is the liquefied petroleum gas of commerce."

"And the others?"

"Ethane has a critical temperature of thirty-two degrees. In Bangalore in August, it would not liquefy at any pressure. It must be cooled as well as compressed. And methane..." He tapped the curve. "Methane is minus eighty-two degrees. You can crush it with a hydraulic press, and it stays a gas. To liquefy it, you must chill it to minus a hundred and sixty. That needs a cryogenic plant, and they are built for oxygen and nitrogen, in small sizes. A few Americans have tried to do it for natural gas."

"Cleveland," Freytag murmured.

"Yes." Brandt’s face tightened. "1944. A tank of liquefied natural gas failed. The liquid spread through the streets and caught fire. A hundred and thirty people died. It is not a technology one learns lightly."

"I didn’t know that story," Ram said.

"Then you know now why I do not recommend we begin with methane."

"Then what do you recommend?"

Brandt put down the chalk. He looked, for the first time, as though he was enjoying himself. "Prime Minister, there are two parts to the problem. The wet gas must be separated into its parts. The methane, which is the bulk and the most difficult, can be pumped back into the reservoir to keep up the pressure, which helps the oil flow, or burned in boilers to make electric power at the field itself. That leaves ethane, the liquefied gases, and the light petrol. They are only a few per cent of the volume, but they are most of the value.

You compress the gas in stages, cool it with water and then by refrigeration, and the heavier fractions drop out as a liquid. This is not difficult. The Americans do it in Texas, on a large scale, in plants called natural-gasoline plants. We did something similar at Leuna with the products of coal hydrogenation."

"So, the plant is built at the field."

"At the field. A gathering system of pipes from the wells. A compressor station. A drying plant, because water forms ice-like crystals with these gases that will block a pipe. A refrigeration stage. And a stripping column that separates the liquids. The output is a stream of liquefied gases, which can be stored in pressurised vessels, and a stream of light petrol."

"Then it is shipped."

"By tanker. Pressurised, if the cargo is propane or butane. Or by pipeline, in a dense phase, if the distance justifies."

"And the further processing, the splitting of propane from butane, the cracking of ethane, the reforming of the light petrol into motor fuel?"

"A refinery task," said Brandt. "A large and delicate one. It requires fractionating towers, crackers, catalysts. You would do it at home."

Ram looked at Bhatnagar. "Dr. Bhatnagar. Is this within India’s capacity?"

Bhatnagar chuckled. He had a deep, comfortable voice. "Prime Minister, if you had asked me that two years ago, I would have said no. Today, with the Standard-Vacuum people building their refinery at Visakhapatnam, the Burmah holdings, the German and Japanese chemists, and the plant going up at Nangal, I say yes. Not easily. Not quickly. But yes."

"What are the difficulties?"

"Let the Germans answer. They have been listing them on slips of paper since they caught on to your thought process."

Brandt laughed. It was a short, dry sound, and it cleared something from the room. A Japanese engineer rose on the right, a small, neat man in glasses named Mori, who had been chief engineer at the Hungnam fertiliser works in Korea before the Soviets came, and who had spent five years afterwards in a refugee camp.

"Compressors, Prime Minister," Mori said. "Compressors are the heart of it. For gas gathering, we need large reciprocating machines, or better, centrifugal compressors driven by steam turbines or gas engines. The Americans make them, at Ingersoll-Rand and Clark. The Germans, at Borsig. India makes none."

"What else?"

"High-pressure valves and seals. A valve that will hold eight atmospheres of propane for twenty years, never leaking, never sticking. A valve that fails in a pipeline carrying liquefied gas can kill a village. We can make steel castings, but the seats and the packings need special alloys and very fine machining."

"Pipe," Brandt said. "Large diameter, seamless or welded to a high standard. Thirty inches for a long line. The Mannesmann press you ordered is the right machine. The welding is a skilled trade. An X-ray inspection of every joint, with a competent man who knows what to look for."

"Pressure vessels," said Mori. "Spheres and bullets. For storage, thick plate, welded without flaw. Our shipyards at Madras and Calcutta have learned to weld Liberty-ship hulls. A pressure vessel is another order of difficulty."

"And the corrosion," said a young Indian metallurgist, rising at the back. "Pardon me, Prime Minister. A pipeline exposed to the elements will corrode from the outside. We need coatings, cathodic protection..."

"Write them all down," Ram said. "All of them. I want a list of every item that India does not make today, with the nearest source and the likely cost of making it ourselves. I do not expect it to be short."

"It will not be," said Brandt.

"Can we move the liquid by sea?" Ram looked at Ghatage. "Dr. Ghatage, the Liberty ships Katari ordered. Could one be modified?"

"A Liberty has five cargo holds, Prime Minister," Ghatage said, "and a good deal of spare tonnage. One could remove the hatch covers, lower in a row of horizontal cylindrical tanks, bullets in the trade, and weld them to the hull. We would have to strengthen the frames. It would be a simple conversion in principle. The Americans did not do it with Liberties, as far as I know, but they converted other hulls to carry bulk liquids. I am told Standard Oil has run a pressurised-gas tanker on the Gulf Coast."

"Then it can be done."

"By Madras, in about nine months, if the design is sound. I would not like to be the first captain."

"Nor would I," Ram said. He turned to the back. "Dr. Sarabhai. You have been standing at the door for a quarter of an hour. Does any of this interest you?"

Sarabhai came forward slowly, his hands folded. "Prime Minister, I am almost ashamed. I have been listening to Dr. Brandt, and I have been thinking about oxygen."

"Oxygen."

"Liquid oxygen, as an oxidiser for rockets. A liquid-fuelled rocket needs two propellants. One is a fuel, such as kerosene or alcohol or liquefied propane. The other is liquid oxygen. We have been thinking about the oxygen in Bangalore for a year, and we have not known where it would come from. A plant that can liquefy air does what a gas-processing plant does, only at lower temperatures. The same compressors, the same heat exchangers, the same valves. If we build the one, we learn the other."

"And the fuel?"

"Propane is a fine rocket fuel, Prime Minister. It stores as a liquid at moderate pressure. It is cheap. It burns clean. Kerosene is simpler, but with a cheap supply of liquefied gas, we might build a rocket that no one else has thought of."

"Freytag?"

The thermodynamicist put down his slide rule. He looked, thought Ram, like a man who has been given a puzzle he has been waiting for. "The compressors are a fine research problem for our young men, Prime Minister. A centrifugal compressor is a cousin of the jet-engine compressor. The same aerodynamics, the same blade problems. We could build a gas-processing compressor in the same hall as the jet engines, and train a man on one machine to run the other. And the refrigeration cycles..." He waved a hand. "Thermodynamics, Prime Minister. It is what I do. The Americans think of it as a stage on the way to something else. I think it is where the interesting work is."

"What other uses?" Ram asked the room.

"Pressurisation," said Ghatage promptly. "Our jet fighters will fly at forty thousand feet. The pilot needs a cabin at a breathable pressure. That means an air conditioning system with compressors and valves. The same skills. We shall need medical oxygen, too, for the AIIMS hospitals, and for the military wards."

"Fertiliser," said Mori. "A fertiliser plant needs hydrogen. We make it at Hungnam by steam reforming of coal or of hydrocarbons. If you have cheap propane or naphtha, you make hydrogen, and with the nitrogen from the air you make ammonia. Ammonia is the base of every nitrogen fertiliser. Dr. Swaminathan’s new wheat will need a great deal."

"Plastics," said Bhatnagar, "if you crack the ethane. Ethylene, polyethylene. Insulation for cables. Pipes for rural water supply that do not rust."

"Platforming," said Brandt, and then looked embarrassed. "A new process, Prime Minister. The American company UOP has announced it. A catalytic reformer that turns light straight-run petrol into high-octane motor spirit, using a platinum catalyst. If your Minister of Industry is buying spent platinum catalyst from the refineries of Asia, he will be pleased to know that it is exactly what we need."

Ram laughed. "I did not know that when I told him to buy it."

"You had a good instinct," said Bhatnagar.

"One more question," Ram said, "and I expect the answer to be discouraging. Suppose we did not have to bring the oil from the Gulf at all. The Soviets have oil in Central Asia. I am told Fergana has been producing since before the revolution. Is there any way a pipeline could be laid from the Soviet frontier on the Panj, down to Gilgit and the Indus?"

Nobody answered at once. Mori looked at Brandt, and Brandt looked at the young Indian metallurgist, who had gone rather pale.

"On a map, Prime Minister, yes," Brandt said at last. "In the field, no. Not now."

"Tell me why."

"Altitude. The Wakhan strip climbs past four thousand metres, and the passes on the Gilgit side are higher still. Pumping stations every hundred kilometres or so, each needing fuel, spares and men, in a land where the snow closes the passes for seven months. Steel that does not turn brittle at minus thirty. Welders who can lay a perfect joint at that cold, in that thin air, with an X-ray set on a mule. A crude that waxes in the pipe unless it is heated."

"The ground freezes and thaws," Mori added. "A pipe buried in frost-heave will buckle within five winters. And the avalanche paths..." He spread his hands. "Prime Minister, I should not like to promise you a line there in less than fifteen years. I should be lying."

"I asked for the truth."

"Then that is the truth. It is not impossible. It is only not yet."

"Then write ’not yet’ on it and file it," Ram said. "Put it beside the Mannesmann press. Some things are nearer than they look."

He stood. The room rose with him, a stir of benches and chalk-dusted sleeves.

"I want to do four things," he said. "First, a design team for the gas plant, which will be built at the source. Dr. Brandt leads it, with Dr. Bhatnagar as the co-chair, because he knows the Indian laboratories and I want no quarrels about who is in charge. Dr. Mori for the plant design, and the Japanese team for refrigeration and ammonia. I will not take Dr. Yamada or Herr Tank from the engines. They are far too busy."

"They will be relieved," Ghatage murmured.

"Second, a conversion team at Madras. Admiral Katari will release a Liberty hull from the order books. Dr. Ghatage, you will advise on the structural calculations. I want a pressurised-cargo ship designed within a year."

"A year, Prime Minister?"

"I did not say built."

"A year for the design. Yes."

"Third, a list of imports, and a plan to make each locally. Fourth, safety. The Cleveland incident disturbs me, for we have a far higher population density."

Brandt’s face went still. "I was at Ludwigshafen in July of 1948, Prime Minister. A tank wagon of dimethyl ether exploded in the works. A hundred and ninety-nine people died. I was in an office across the yard. I carried out some of the wounded."

"Then you know what we need to do. I want a safety code in place before the first plant is commissioned, with every standard you can find from Germany, America, and Japan. I want it to be the strictest in the world. I am not afraid of what we cannot build. I am afraid of what we cannot control."

"It will take a year to write," Brandt said quietly.

"You have it."

He turned to Bhatnagar. "Dr. Bhatnagar, I shall need your best men."

"You shall have them."

"One more thing." Ram folded the Visakhapatnam plan and slid it into his case. "Everyone in this room has told me that a gas plant is a distant prospect. Compressors are not made in India, valves are not made in India, and the gas is in the wrong country. I accept all of it. I want you to tell me what you could do with a plant in four years, and what you could do in ten. I will tell you in a few weeks where the gas is."

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