Edition Tag: Nitrogen Syngas 2024-01-31

A complete listing of all articles and news items that appeared in Nitrogen+Syngas magazine during 2023.

Incitec Pivot says that Mauro Neves de Moraes has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director from 22 January 2024. De Moraes has leadership experience in the mining and logistics sectors including as Asset President for BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) in Queensland, Australia and Asset President at BHP’s Escondida operations in Chile, the world’s largest copper mine.

We are very pleased to be able to tell you that, as of this issue, Nitrogen+Syngas magazine has a new publisher. Or rather, an old publisher, as the magazine is now once again part of the CRU Group.

As Europe struggles to move away from its previous dependence on imported Russian natural gas, prices have been high and volatile, with a corresponding catastrophic impact upon domestic ammonia production.

Maire Group subsidiary MyRechemical has been awarded a feasibility study for the integration of its proprietary waste-tosyngas technology in a large-scale conversion plant that would transform solid municipal waste into 120,000 t/a of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). MyRechemical would provide the gasification unit to transform solid waste streams into synthesis gas, which would then be converted into low carbon ethanol and then to SAF.

Today some 75% of all urea plants worldwide operate a prilling tower as the solidification and finishing technology. A prilling tower is a large hollow concrete tower in which concentrated urea melt is sprayed from the top via a rotating bucket or static shower heads. The urea melt droplets cool and solidify while falling down some 70-100 m. The heat is removed by ambient air flowing upwards either as a natural draft due to the temperature increase or forced by means of air blowers.

In spite of nearly two years of western sanctions, Russian exports of nitrogen fertilizer have recovered almost to pre-war levels, while high prices led to record earnings in 2022.

OCI Global says that it has reached an agreement for the sale of 100% of its interest in its large-scale nitrogen fertilizer subsidiary the Iowa Fertilizer Company LLC, located in Wever, Iowa, to Koch Ag & Energy Solutions for $3.6 billion. Completion of the transaction remains subject to US anti-trust approval and other customary closing conditions. The transaction is expected to close in 2024. Morgan Stanley & Co. International plc is serving as financial advisor to OCI on the transaction. IFCO produced 1.2 million t/a of urea ammonium nitrate (UAN) in 2021 and 700,000 t/a of anhydrous ammonia, as well as 700,000 t/a of diesel exhaust fluid (DEF).

Ammonia prices are expected to remain soft moving through January with little in the way of price support from both a supply and demand perspective. Weakened global sentiment was characterised by news of January’s Tampa settlement $100/t down on December at $525/t CFR, with further declines anticipated in Q1 once the Gulf Coast Ammonia (GCA) project comes online. Traders returned to their desks in the New Year and ammonia prices extended losses amid a stable supply outlook and a distinct lack of downstream industrial and fertilizer demand.