Wi th future demand for both low carbon methanol and ammonia depending to a considerable extent on their take-up as low carbon shipping fuels, recent developments in the EU and IMO may help accelerate that process, as detailed in CRU’s most recent Low Carbon Hydrogen and Ammonia Outlook.
Renewable capacity statistics 2025 released by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) shows a massive increase in renewable power capacity during 2024, reaching 4,448 gigawatts (GW). The 585 GW addition last year indicates that renewables claimed a 92.5% share of the total capacity expansion in power generation, and a record rate of annual growth (15.1%). Even so, progress still falls just short of the 16.6% growth needed to be producing 11.2 terawatts of energy by 2030. Progress also reflects significant geographic disparities. As in previous years, most of the increase occurred in Asia, with the greatest share being contributed by China- almost 64% of the global added capacity. G7 and G20 countries respectively accounted for 14.3% and 90.3% of new capacity in 2024.
CF Industries has formed a joint venture with JERA, Japan’s largest energy company, and Mitsui & Co, a leading global investment and trading company, for the construction, production and offtake of low-carbon ammonia.
For the first time, K+S is offering farmers low-carbon potash and magnesium fertilizers.
NextChem compares KPIs and overall costs to evaluate the performance of several low carbon (blue) hydrogen production technologies. A detailed comparison of SCT-CPO, SMR and ATR technologies is reported.
In this CRU Insight, Halima Abu Ali and Charlie Stephen look at what changes to the EU’s carbon taxation regime will mean for the fertilizer industry.
While green hydrogen and green ammonia promise to be important clean energy carriers in future, there are significant challenges to be overcome not only in production storage and transport, but also financially realising the project. Innovate technology from thyssenkrupp Uhde, embodied in standardised, pre-integrated, modularised plant can deliver low cost of ownership and de-risks execution.
M.J. Cousins of Johnson Matthey and K. Nölker of thyssenkrupp Uhde discuss the integration of LCHTM technology and the uhde® ammonia process in providing low carbon ammonia at scale, efficiently, reliably and safely today.
A European ammonia plant, has successfully restarted following a revamp of the process gas cooling section, executed by Casale. Casale replaced the outdated boilers located downstream of the secondary reformer with three new double-tube type boilers supplied by Arvos. The new boilers were installed in the same location as the previous ones, minimising investment costs and plant modifications. The more robust and reliable design of the Casale-Arvos boilers has resulted in enhanced overall performance and reliability of the ammonia plant.
KT-Kinetics technology has signed an $125 million engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning (EPCC) contract to build a hydrogen production unit at Petronas’ Pengerang Biorefinery, Malaysia. The hydrogen plan is expected to be operational by the second half of 2028, and will supply up to 38,000 normal m3 /h of hydrogen for the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO). NextChem will license its NX ReformTM technology for the unit. The new biorefinery will process approximately 650,000 t/a of raw materials such as used vegetable oils, animal fats and waste from the processing of vegetable oils to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) and bio-naphtha.