12 Aug 2021

Minister of Minerals Resources, Green Technology and Energy Security, Mr Lefoko Moagi says oxygen produced by an industrial oxygen plant does not conform to standards required for medical grade oxygen used in hospitals for patients.

Answering a question in Parliament on August 11, Mr Moagi he said the size of the components in an industrial plant were much larger than in any medical grade plant, by order of magnitude of around 12-20 times the size.

Mr Moagi indicated that regulations and standards dictated the materials and processes to be used to produce medical grade oxygen, adding that medical compressors generally came in sizes far smaller than industrial plants, such as those at BCL.

The minister said he had engaged the BCL liquidator regarding the possibility of liquefaction and bottling of oxygen of medical grade oxygen that can be used in hospitals for COVID-19 patients, with a view to establish what would be required to convert the plants so that they were fit for such purpose.

In that regard, he said the liquidator had duly directed his team to continue investigating the option of utilising the industrial plants for the production and bottling of oxygen deemed safe for medical use.

He also stated that while the ministry continued to investigate the possible use of the industrial plants, alternate solutions should be considered simultaneously.

Mr Moagi further informed Parliament that a far safer, more cost effective and time frame sensitive option may be to invest in what was called Pressure Swing Absorption (PSA) type oxygen generators (O2 generators), which were suitably sized and can be installed on any hospital site in a relatively short time.

For installation, he stated, the pressurised discharge from the PSA plant would be merely piped into the existing hospital oxygen plumbing system.

He said by generating concentrated oxygen on a hospital site, the issues of supply vendors, contracts for transport, delivery, bottling and stock would be fully mitigated, hence a lasting solution.

He further stated that considering the possible insurmountable constraints of modifying the industrial plant, the deciding factor would critically be availability, delivery and installation time frames for a PSA system.

Mr Moagi acknowledged the critical need for an uninterrupted supply of medical grade oxygen in hospitals to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on patients as well as significant reduction in the mortality rate that the idea to convert industrial oxygen to medical oxygen would bring about.

He further clarified that the BCL oxygen plant was not in a good state of repair at the time of liquidation as there was no benefit to repairing it during care and maintenance.

Furthermore, Parliament learnt that the plants at BCL used the principle of fractional distillation of air to separate oxygen from other gases in the air, based on the differing liquefaction properties of the gases, in particular that of pressure and temperature, which were used to condense each gas separately into a liquid.

For production of oxygen for industrial use such as smelter application, he said, the plants liquefied and removed nitrogen, hence there was no need to further process the product to produce liquid oxygen.

After removal of nitrogen, he stated, the resulting product gas mixture would be ready for use in the smelter.

Therefore, he said, the three plants at BCL premises did not produce liquefied oxygen, but only oxygen in a gaseous state which was then piped to the smelter, adding in such gaseous state, the product cannot be suitably bottled with current infrastructure on site.

Mr Moagi was answering Selebi Phikwe West MP, Mr Dithapelo Keorapetse, who had asked the minister to confirm the state of oxygen plant at the BCL mine in Selebi-Phikwe.

Mr Keorapetse  also wanted the minister to clarify whether or not it can be used to manufacture medical oxygen, instead of industrial oxygen, to deal with the current acute shortage. ENDS