Ruhrbenzin A.G., Holten
Location
This plant is situated just East of Holten and is integral with other parts of the Ruhrchemie group. Authorization to inspect it was issued by the Chief Production Officer, Number 1 (Ruhr) District North German Coal Control.
Description
This is a Fischer Tropsch plant with separate atmospheric and medium pressure sections. In the atmospheric section there are 52 tube and plate ovens and in the medium pressure section there are 73 ovens of the concentric double tube type. The total combined production is about 90,000 tons of hydrocarbons per year. The importance of the plant, however, is not in proportion to the output; the central plant for catalyst manufacture for all the Fischer-Tropsch plants in the Ruhr is in the Ruhrchemie group and here also are located large scale and development plants for synthetic lubricating oil and the OXO process which utilize Fischer-Tropsch products as raw materials.
The construction and operation of the plant has been described in detail by C.C.Hall and V.Haensel, CIOS Target No 30/5.01. This report is on file at the office of the Ministry of Fuel and Power and at the CIOS Library, File Number XXVII - 69.
Status
On September 21st the writer visited this plant and interrogated:
Dr. Martin, President of Ruhrchemie
and several technical members of his staff.
The whole Ruhrchemie plant area has been badly damaged by bombing. In the catalyst oven building 7 of the 52 atmospheric pressure ovens were completely destroyed and only 24 were undamaged; 6 of the medium pressure ovens were destroyed and 48 out of 73 were undamaged. About 6 months of reconstruction would be required to put this part of the plant into full operation. The catalyst factory on the operation of which the Fischer-Tropsch industry in the Ruhr depends was damaged to about 25 to 30 per cent. At the time of the inspection no major repair work appeared to be in progress in it. It was stated that the iron-copper-lime-Kieselguhr catalyst would be manufactured in this plant with only minor alterations.