Category: Europe

The European Commission (EC) says it has begun tracking European imports of certain ethylene and ammonia products, to allow it to react quickly to level the playing field if the monitoring points to a surge of imports causing or threatening to cause injury to the EU industry. This surveillance has been put in place in response to evidence of a significant and potentially injurious increase in the EU market share of imports of the chemicals. It covers imports of copolymers of ethylene and alpha olefin, urea containing more than 45% (by weight) of nitrogen, and ammonium sulphate from all countries, and should remain in place for a period of three years.

Tecnicas Reunidas and Siemens Energy have been awarded the contract to carry out front-end engineering design (FEED) for a major green methanol project in La Robla, Spain. The consortium will work on the project for Spanish developer Reolum, part of a partnership that says it is building the largest green methanol plant in Europe. The La Robla Nueva Energia facility will combine biogenic CO2 from a co-located biomass-based cogeneration plant with green hydrogen to produce 140,000 t/a of low carbon methanol. Tecnicas Reunidas will focus on the biogenic carbon capture and methanol production units, while Siemens Energy will handle the renewable hydrogen unit. Johnson Matthey has been selected to supply its eMERALD methanol technology, while Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will license it CO2 capture technology for the project.

Fertilizer International talks with Jakob Liedberg, the CEO of innovative potassium sulphate producer Cinis Fertilizer.

Alzbeta Klein, CEO and Director General of the International Fertilizer Association (IFA), sets the scene for IFA’s Annual Conference in Monaco, 12-14 May.

PuraLoop is a new fertilizer created from recycled phosphorus. ICL’s Patricia Imas and Lucas van der Saag highlight its main benefits.

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.

Liquid Wind has announced the development of a new 100,000 t/a green methanol project in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden, in collaboration with local energy company Övik Energi. Övik Energi’s combined heat and power plant in Örnsköldsvik was due to be the site of Ørsted’s FlagshipONE project, which was slated to produce 55,000 t/a of green methanol from 2025. A final investment decision (FID) was made in late 2022 when Ørsted bought out Liquid Wind’s 55% stake in the project, but the Danish offshore wind company chose to discontinue FlagshipONE in August 2024.

Gasgrid Finland Oy has awarded Worley a four-year framework agreement with an option for extension until 2032, to provide owners engineering services for Gasgrid’s hydrogen pipeline system development in Finland. This 1,100 km long hydrogen pipeline system is expected to link major hydrogen production and offtake centres across Finland and enable the development of hydrogen export routes to neighbouring markets. Gasgrid says that the planned hydrogen pipeline system will support cost-efficient, reliable and secure renewable energy market development for the Nordic countries and elsewhere in Europe. Worley will provide the OE services primarily through Worley’s offices in the Netherlands and Finland with support from the Global Integrated Delivery (GID) team in India.

Johnson Matthey (JM) has released new production performance data which shows the significant improvements in efficiency of existing steam methane reformer (SMR) based hydrogen plants with the use of its catalyst, CATACEL SSR ™ . The company says that the data show that the catalyst can increase hydrogen plant capacity by 15% and reduce reformer energy use per unit of hydrogen by 15%, with a 5% reduction in gas consumption per unit hydrogen, as well as ease of installation, and enhanced durability and heat transfer. The catalyst uses uniquely engineered structures of thin metal foils, or “fans,” coated with catalysts through a proprietary process, which offer greater surface area, higher durability, and superior heat transfer, essential for high-temperature processes such as SMR.

TotalEnergies has signed agreements with Air Liquide to develop two projects in the Netherlands for the production and delivery of some 45,000 t/a of green hydrogen produced using renewable power, generated mostly by the OranjeWind offshore wind farm, developed by TotalEnergies (50%) and RWE (50%). These projects will cut CO2 emissions from TotalEnergies’ refineries in Belgium and the Netherlands by up to 450,000 t/a and contribute to the European renewable energy targets in transport.