Nitrogen Industry News Roundup

NITROGEN INDUSTRY NEWS

FRANCE

IFA signs collaboration agreement with UN FAO

The International Fertilizer Association (IFA) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) over collaboration to support the FAO’s vision of transformative change and innovation in agriculture. Svein Tore Holsether, IFA Chair, signed the agreement at a live virtual signing in December together with FAO deputy director general Beth Bechdol. The agreement outlines collaboration to further shared goals and objectives with regard to the promotion of sustainable food and agriculture. Both parties will work together to raise awareness about the International Code of Conduct for the Sustainable Use and Management of Fertilizers (Fertilizer Code), promote education and knowledge transfer and continue their successful collaboration on fertilizer statistics.

Sustainable plant nutrition is a key focus for the fertilizer industry, which is dedicated to helping implement better management practices on a global level. The FAO’s International Code of Conduct for the Sustainable Use and Management of Fertilizers is an important tool to achieve this.

IFA and FAO developed a workplan which includes education and knowledge transfer through joint seminars, webinars and scientific exchanges, among many other activities and to continue ongoing cooperation on global fertilizer statistics.

NORWAY

Work begins on green hydrogen feed for Porsgrunn

Norway’s state environmental fund Enova SF has granted Yara $32.3 million for the latter’s green ammonia initiative at its ammonia plant at Herøya near Porsgrunn. The finding will help instal a 24 MW electrolysis plant which will generate green hydrogen to be used in the ammonia plant, allowing 20,500 t/a of green ammonia to be produced, reducing the plant’s CO2 emissions by 41,000 t/a from around mid-2023. This initial installation will be a technology demonstrator and for quality assurance purposes, though longer term Yara aims to completely replace its gas-based feed at Porsgrunn with green hydrogen. Yara says that it has already cut its own emissions by about 45% since 2005 and will continue to reduce its own emissions and emissions from power production by an additional 30% by 2030.

Grant agreed for Barents Blue ammonia plant

Horisont Energi AS says that its Barents Blue clean ammonia plant has been awarded a $53.6 million grant by Enova SF, subject to approval by the EU Commission and European Free Trade Association Surveillance Authority. Should the grant be approved, Horisont Energi, with partners Equinor ASA and Var Energi AS, will proceed to the front end engineering design phase of the Barents Blue project in 2022. Construction work is planned to take place from 2023 to 2025, and the plant is expected to be in operation around the turn of the year 2025-2026.

Horisont Energi said that the European Union’s Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI) programme will provide it with “a unique opportunity to link the Barents Blue project to other projects and value chains in the 23 participating European countries, to create positive spillover effects and benefit from possible knowledge transfer, financing, market size and other economies of scale.”

UNITED STATES

CF welcomes duty determination on UAN

CF Industries says that it welcomes the US Department of Commerce’s preliminary determinations that urea ammonium nitrate (UAN) imports from Russia are unfairly subsidised at rates ranging from 9.66% to 9.84% and UAN imports from Trinidad and Tobago at a rate of 1.83%. The DoC made the determinations as part of countervailing duty investigations that are being conducted in response to petitions filed by CF Industries through certain of its production facilities, and as a result will impose preliminary cash deposit requirements on imports of UAN from Russia and Trinidad. It is conducting concurrent anti-dumping investigations into UAN from Russia and Trinidad. Preliminary determinations in these investigations are expected in late January.

GERMANY

Clariant working on ammonia cracking catalysts

Clariant Catalysts is participating in Germany’s AmmoRef project, which is tasked to develop process technologies and catalysts for ammonia cracking to facilitate future hydrogen transport over for large distances. With e14 million in funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), AmmoRef is part of the overarching e135 million TransHyDE project, which aims to revolutionise the nation’s hydrogen transport infrastructure in preparation for a sweeping energy transition. TransHyDE is one of three hydrogen flagship projects aiming to prepare Germany’s entry into a hydrogen economy.

Marvin Estenfelder, Head of R&D at Clariant Catalysts, commented, “Clariant has been involved in R&D and cross-industry collaborations in this field for many years, and we have already developed numerous catalysts for use in innovative hydrogen applications. We are confident that together we will make it possible to recover pure hydrogen from ammonia in the scales required for efficient and safe mass transportation of hydrogen.”

Free NOx removal catalyst

Clariant has also launched a campaign to provide free nitrous oxide removal catalyst for nitric acid producers worldwide to reduce the climate change impact of nitrous oxide (N2 O). The company is offering a free fill of its EnviCat NO-S 2 catalyst, which removes up to 95% of N2 O generated as a by-product of nitric acid production. to 10 nitric acid producers who do not have N2 O off-gas treatment in place. Through the campaign, the company intends to help avoid greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to several million tons of CO2 every year. Of the approximately 500 nitric acid plants operating globally, more than half run without N2 O abatement, mostly in regions without applicable emission control regulations. Over 60 million tons of nitric acid are produced annually around the world, mainly for manufacturing fertilizers. Annually, N2 O emissions from the production of nitric acid and its derivative adipic acid are equivalent to about 100 million t/a of CO2 .

AUSTRALIA

Incitec moving forward on green ammonia plan

Incitec Pivot Ltd, Australia’s largest supplier of fertilizers, says that it has completed initial feasibility studies on converting its Gibson Island ammonia plant to run on zero carbon green hydrogen, in conjunction with Fortescue Future Industries (FFI). The latter plans to construct an on-site electrolysis plant, which could produce up to 50,000 t/a of green hydrogen for conversion into ammonia, replacing the current fossil fuel gas feedstock. High natural gas prices had threatened Gibson Island with closure.

FFI is now moving forward with an engineering design study to refine cost, schedule, permitting and commercial agreements, and inform a potential final investment decision

FFI CEO Julie Shuttleworth said, “FFI’s collaboration with Incitec Pivot is an exciting opportunity to harness existing infrastructure at Gibson Island, fast tracking the production of green ammonia at an industrial scale. Pending further approvals, this project could be Australia’s first green ammonia production facility, demonstrating existing infrastructure can be retrofitted to utilise zero-emissions energy sources.”

Australia facing AdBlue shortage

High international urea prices exacerbated by a Chinese export ban have left Australia facing a shortage of the AdBlue urea solution used in the catalytic converters of heavy diesel road vehicles for NOx abatement. Australia has only one urea producer, Incitec Pivot, with 290,000 t/a of capacity at Gibson Island, and usually imports 80% of its urea requirements from China.

‘Project Haber’ urea plant proposal

Gas exploration and development company Strike Energy, which is planning to build a 1.4 million t/a ammonia-urea plant near Geraldton in Western Australia, has been awarded a A$2 million grant to help fund project development. Strike is proposing to pipe natural gas 125 km from its own South Erregulla natural gas project near Eneabba to the urea plant site. The company says that it hopes to merge front-end engineering design (FEED) and subsequent engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) phases of development – it has started early FEED works, mainly to do with environmental approvals and has initiated a FEED/ EPC tender process for Project Haber. The tender will be issued once drilling at South Erregulla – already well under way – proves the required gas supply is present. The company also initially intends to supply 2% of its hydrogen demand from its own dedicated 10 MW hydrogen electrolyser.

RUSSIA

Agreement for low-carbon ammonia supply

Russian gas producer Novatek and German energy company Uniper SE have announced the signing of a long-term supply agreement of up to 1.2 million t/a tons of low-carbon ammonia for the German market. Production will take place at Novatek’s planned Obskiy Gas Chemical Complex in the Russian Arctic and be delivered to Uniper’s planned ammonia import terminal in Wilhelmshaven, equipped with an ammonia cracker operating with renewable power.

The Obskiy plant will include carbon capture and storage facilities and the product price will be indexed to relevant European and global benchmarks. The imported low-carbon ammonia is set to be implemented as a hydrogen carrier, transformed into gaseous hydrogen and fed into the future German hydrogen pipeline system, as well as supplied directly as a clean feedstock and as a fuel.

“Our strategy pays significant attention to clean energy supplies, and we consider ammonia as the most efficient hydrogen carrier for seaborne transportation,” said Leonid Mikhelson, Chairman of Novatek’s Management Board. “We are now at the pre-FEED stage for a low-carbon ammonia and hydrogen plant with CCS facilities, and signing of term sheets for long-term supply demonstrates growing demand for low-carbon products, which is an essential precursor for the Final Investment Decision on this project,” he added. “The plant will be located next to our LNG cluster in Yamal in order to minimise the infrastructure costs and provide the most competitive clean energy supplies to the global market.”

SOUTH AFRICA

Green ammonia export plan

Linde is joining with UK-based Hive Hydrogen and local firm Built Africa to establish a green ammonia export plant in the Coega special economic zone near the port of Ngqura in Nelson Mandela Bay, in the Eastern Cape. The first phase of the 780,000 t/a, $4.6 billion project is planned to begin operation in 2025, with full operation by the end of 2026, using solar and wind energy to generate hydrogen. Hive Hydrogen is being supported by InvestSA, a branch of the South African Department of Trade, Industry and Competition.

CROATIA

Petrokemija shut down again

Croatian fertilizer producer Petrokemija said that it had stopped operations at its ammonia-urea plant at Kutina on December 3rd. The shutdown follows technical issues that have dogged the plant throughout 2021. The site was shut down from late December 2020 to February 2021 for a major maintenance overhaul including changeover of a new liquid sulphur tank at the site’s sulphuric acid plant and the installation of a new combustion air preheater for the ammonia plant primary reformer. However, there was a further maintenance shutdown that began in May 2021 which was extended to June 30th due to what the company described as problems with “auxiliary processes”. The ammonia-urea unit went down for three weeks again in September, and a full restart was not completed until October, but the plant was only on-stream for two months before being taken down by the latest technical issue. The company also reports issues with natural gas pricing in the current environment. Petrokemija’s 3Q 2021 profits were 94% down on the same period of 2020, and last May the company announced a plan for 350 staff layoffs.

OMAN

Decarbonisation plan for Salalah ammonia plant

OQ, formerly the Oman Oil Company, has unveiled a $1 billion project called SalalaH2 to decarbonise the company’s existing 1,000 t/d ammonia plant at Salalah and its integration into a complex including up to 1 GW of solar and wind based renewable energy capacity, and 400 MW of electrolyser capacity to produce green hydrogen and other green products. Other project partners include Linde, Japan’s Marubeni trading house, and UAE-based Dutco. The Salalah site also currently includes LPG and methanol production. The project envisages a several year switch-over from gas-based to ultimately 100% renewable ammonia production and export.

Rudolphe Kotliar, Business Development Manager at Linde Clean Energy, told local media that the integration of the existing ammonia plant with new renewable energy capacity and green hydrogen production components will result in green products emerging from Salalah. “Renewable energy will also be supplied to the air separation units to produce green nitrogen that will be mixed with ammonia. Likewise, water production will be based on renewable energy, thus making green water. Oxygen output will be integrated into the process as well,” he said.

SAUDI ARABIA

Thyssenkrupp signs deal for 2GW electrolysis plant

Thyssenkrupp Uhde Chlorine Engineers has won a contract from Air Products to supply and install a $ 5 billion, 2GW electrolysis plant for one of the world’s largest green hydrogen projects at the ambitious Neom ‘future city’ development in Saudi Arabia. Thyssenkrupp will design and build the Neom plant based on its 20MW alkaline water electrolysis module, with commissioning expected in 2026. Neom, planned for the Red Sea coast, is a $500 billion development which is intended to be powered by up to 40GW of renewable energy.

“As a world market leader in electrolysis we bring in two decisive factors to realise such gigawatt projects: With our large-scale standard module size and gigawatt cell manufacturing capacity per year together with our joint venture partner De Nora we are able to deliver large capacity projects today,” said Denis Krude, chief executive of Thyssenkrupp Uhde Chlorine Engineers. “With this gigawatt project, we are committed to invest into ramping up our manufacturing capacities further.”

Neom, developer ACWA Power and Air Products will operate the 2GW facility upon commissioning. Air Products aims to convert the H2 into carbon-free ammonia for export to global markets.

CHILE

Total Eren looking to mega-scale renewable ammonia plant

Total Eren, a partnership between French oil major Total and EREN renewable energies, says that it is engaged in a feasibility study for a 10 GW clean hydrogen development at Magallanes in southern Chile. The developer has already secured land in preparation for the project, and describes the region, in the southern tip of Chile, as having “the best onshore wind conditions in the world” as well as access to the sea for desalination, and ports to export green fuels. At the moment, up to 800,000 t/a of green hydrogen and 4.4 million t/a of ammonia production is being considered. Total Eren says that if the studies prove successful, it hopes to begin work on the H2 Magallanes project in 2025, with first production by 2027.

Fabienne Demol, global head of business development of Total Eren, said: “We are delighted to present this large-scale green hydrogen project, a pioneering initiative that we are proud to officially launch today in Chile’s Punta Arenas. I am eager to begin construction to contribute to Chile’s ambition of becoming a top destination for green hydrogen investment in Latin America and meet the needs of our customers worldwide.”

MEXICO

Local vote approves ammonia-urea plant

A referendum among 40,000 local citizens has approved the construction of a $5 billion ammonia-urea plant at Topolobambo by 76-24, albeit on a very low turnout (13%). The plant had generated controversy among the citizens of Sinaloa state. Construction had begun in August 2018 but a federal judge halted the project in March 2019 due to environmental concerns. In June that year Mexican president López Obrador called for a referendum on the project to be held, a proposal he renewed in August 2020. The project is a development by Gas y Petroquimica de Occidente (GPO), a subsidiary of Swiss engineering, procurement and construction group Proman AG, and envisages 800,000 t/a of ammonia and 1.0 million t/a of urea capacity being fed by local gas reserves, with a 1.4 million t/a methanol plant to follow in a later phase of development.

MAURITANIA

MoU signed on LNG and ammonia project proposal

Gas-to-power developer New Fortress Energy (NFE) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Mauritania in west Africa for the proposed development of an energy hub, including natural gas, power, LNG, and blue ammonia, using existing offshore gas reserves. NFE says that it is aiming to use to use its “Fast LNG” technology, based around jack-up rigs or similar floating infrastructure, allowing lower cost and faster deployment schedules than conventional floating liquefaction vessels. Gas will be supplied to a new 120MW combined cycle power plant and the existing 180 MW Somolec power plant, as well as ‘blue’ ammonia capacity.

A separate proposal by CWP Energy signed an agreement with the Mauritanian government in November for a feasibility study on a 30GW of wind and solar energy development in the north of the country that could feed up to 10 million t/a of green ammonia production.

INDIA

Deepak Fertilisers begins work on TGAN plant

A foundation stone laying ceremony has been held to mark the beginning of construction of a new ammonia, nitric acid, ammonium nitrate solutions and technical grade ammonium nitrate (TGAN) plant at Gopalpur. The plant is being built by Smartchem Technologies, a wholly owned subsidiary of Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd. Capacity will be 165,000 t/a of ammonia, 297,000 t/a of nitric acid, 377,000 t/a of AN solutions and 330,000 t/a of TGAN, with total investment budget put at $235 million.

Ammonium sulphate plant inaugurated

Steel producer BSL has inaugurated a new ammonium sulphate plant. The plant is fed by 180,000 m3 /h of coke oven off gas. BSL sells the ammonium sulphate as fertilizer in India. The inauguration was attended by R. Kushwaha, Executive Director (Projects), Atanu Bhowmik, Executive Director (Works), Sanjay Kumar, general manager (Services) Sanjay Kumar, and Rakesh Kumar, general manager (Coke Oven & BPP).

PAKISTAN

Ministry agrees more gas for fertilizer production

Pakistan’s Ministry of Industries and Production has approved more gas supplies for the country’s urea plants that supply the domestic sector – mainly Fatima Fertilizers and Agritech – for the period October 2021 – March 2022, placing them on a par with the export-oriented plans which have previously been favoured in terms of gas allocation, in order to ensure urea supplies to domestic consumers during the current period of high international urea prices. A gas price of $4.77/MMBtu has been adopted.

TRINIDAD & TOBAGO

Study on green hydrogen

KBR says it has been awarded a study to help establish a green hydrogen market in Trinidad and Tobago as part of an ongoing technical cooperation financed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Under the terms of the contract, KBR will analyse strategies for maximising opportunities to establish a green hydrogen economy in Trinidad and Tobago, undertaking supply and demand dynamics for green hydrogen generation, transportation, and end use applications. The study will identify opportunities for the development of a low carbon economy, with a roadmap to Net Zero through technological innovation. It will assess the potential for green hydrogen production as well as the repurposing of the existing facilities for low carbon hydrogen. The assessment will include recommendations for a technical implementation plan.

“This study builds on KBR’s proud history of supporting Trinidad and Tobago’s advancing focus on clean energy solutions – establishing itself as a leader in the regional hydrogen economy,” said Jay Ibrahim, President, Sustainable Technology Solutions, KBR. “The recent COP26 Summit brought into focus the threat of climate change on island nations. The opportunity to help the country meet its carbon reduction and sustainability targets firmly aligns with KBRs commitment of driving innovative solutions to support sustainability.”

JAPAN

Sumitomo looking towards low carbon ammonia

Sumitomo Chemicals is reportedly in discussions with Yara over supplies of low carbon ammonia for fibre production at its Ehime site. The companies have agreed to jointly explore using clean ammonia produced by Yara, green ammonia produced using renewable hydrogen and blue ammonia produced from fossil fuels but with carbon emissions captured and stored or reused. Sumitomo has set itself a goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030 compared to 2014 levels, and to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

CHINA

Stamicarbon to license urea technology

Stamicarbon has been awarded a licensing and equipment supply contract for two ultra-low energy grassroots urea plants Dong-ping, Shandong Province, for a local urea producer. Stamicarbon will deliver the process design package and the proprietary high-pressure equipment in Safurex® as well as associated services for the urea melt plants and prill towers. The two urea melt plants will each have a capacity of 2,334 t/d and will use Stamicarbon’s proprietary Pool Reactor technology. The plants are expected to start up in the middle of 2023.

This contract represents Stamicarbon’s fifth and sixth utlra low energy urea installations since its introduction. It builds on the success of the three earlier plants in China, of which Jinjiang Xinlianxin and Hubei Sanning are in operation and Henan Xinlianxin is under construction. The design allows for heat to be used three times (instead of two), bringing energy use to an unprecedentedly low level. It also substantially reduces plant operating costs by significantly reducing steam and cooling water consumption. The design can also be used as a revamp tool for both CO2 stripping and conventional urea plants.