Author: meninderkaurdavies

Market Insight courtesy of Argus Media

We compare and contrast the 2021 financial performance of selected major fertilizer producers following the publication of fourth quarter results.

A new cost-effective alternative sulphur technology, providing a simple and robust process to achieve an overall sulphur recovery efficiency of 99.9+% is being developed by Saudi Aramco. J. P. O’Connell and I.A. Alami of Saudi Aramco discuss the new technology, its benefits and current stage of development.

Developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict is going to be a key influence for the sulphur market through the year. The potential loss of Russian sulphur to key import markets such as North Africa and Latin America is likely to lead to trade flows increasing to these regions from the Middle East and North America.

It was supposedly Lenin who said that there were “weeks when decades happen”, and the past few weeks have felt very much like that. The outbreak of conflict in Ukraine has sent shockwaves across the world and may have changed it permanently.

Ricardo L. Sepulveda of PegasusTSI reviews options to decrease the CO2 footprint of a fertilizer industrial complex and illustrates the technical and economic feasibility of utilising clean energy from a sulphuric acid plant in a fertilizer complex to produce green hydrogen, which in turn can be used to produce green methanol or green ammonia.

A sulphuric acid plant forms critical material and energy interfaces with other plants in several different types of chemical and metallurgical complexes. Shailesh Sampat of SNC-Lavalin discusses how the acid plant design is customised to match the product mix and the energy requirements of the complex to provide the optimum solution for energy and material requirements.

Haldor Topsoe has appointed Elena Scaltritti as the company’s new chief commercial officer. She will take up her new position no later than July 1st, 2022. She has previously been executive vice president at Korea’s SONGWON Industrial Group, where she was responsible for the group’s commercial activities.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the consequent sanctions imposed by European and North American countries, and fears over further sanctions and a widening of the conflict have had sent a systemic shock through the world trading system. Stock markets dropped sharply, and the Russian rouble lost 30% of its value. The most immediate short and medium term impact is likely to come from Russian banks being cut off from the SWIFT international payment system, making exports of commodities more difficult, although no direct restrictions or embargos have been imposed on Russian products as of time of writing.

As all industries come under pressure to decarbonise, are there ways to reduce the carbon footprint of sulphur recovery operations?