Enhanced efficiency fertilizers (EEFs) occupy a small but high-value segment of the overall fertilizer market, although their production and use is accelerating. This trend is unsurprising given that their higher costs are usually more than offset by better efficiency and lower application rates.
The ammonia market continues to be oversupplied, and prices have dropped to historically low levels. Yuzhnyy rates dropped to $175/t f.o.b. in July. In spite of shutdowns in Trinidad and elsewhere, demand remains sluggish and recovery from the Covid epidemic is patchy, especially in the US.
Spanish fertilizer producer Fertiberia is teaming up with energy firm Iberdrola to build Europe’s largest plant for generating green hydrogen for industrial use – in this case ammonia production. The 100MW solar plant and accompanying 20 MWh lithium-ion battery system and 20MW electrolytic hydrogen production system will be built at a cost of $174 million, and electrolyse water to produce 720 t/a of hydrogen. When fed into Fertiberia’s existing ammonia plant at Puertollano, 250km south of Madrid, the hydrogen will allow a 10% reduction in natural gas use by the plant, saving the company 39,000 t/a in annual CO 2 emissions. Start-up is planned for 2021. Fertiberia will also use electrolysis-generated oxygen as a raw material for nitric acid, which is used to produce ammonium nitrate at the site.
TechnipFMC’s EARTH ® technology, with its structured catalyst jointly developed by TechnipFMC and Clariant, has been proven to be a cost effective way to drastically improve productivity and energy efficiency of the steam reforming process, while reducing the CO 2 footprint per unit hydrogen and syngas product. The technology can be applied in projects to increase the capacity of ammonia and methanol plants and allows significant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. S. Walspurger of Technip Benelux B.V. and S. Gebert of Clariant GmbH report on the EARTH ® technology and its applications.
Alistair Wallace, Head of Fertilizer Research, Argus Media, assesses price trends and the market outlook for nitrogen.
In spite of continuing safety concerns due to the Beirut explosion, and the rise of the use of urea as a nitrogen fertilizer, ammonium nitrate demand continues to increase in several key markets.
With increasing frequency, companies that have molten sulphur on site must put environmental controls on the vent streams from molten sulphur pits, storage tanks and loading operations. This article* describes the typical characteristics of molten sulphur vent gas streams as well as some of the important chemistry related to these systems in caustic scrubbers. Solids deposition issues observed in the field with caustic scrubbers operating on actual molten sulphur vent gas streams are presented. Design and operational strategies to mitigate plugging in molten sulphur vent gas scrubbers are also summarised in this article by D. J. Sachde, K. E. McIntush, D. L. Mamrosh , and C. M. Beitler of Trimeric Corporation.
At the end of last year, in our November/ December 2019 issue, I remarked upon the fresh impetus that the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) target of reducing carbon emissions from shipping by 50% in 2050 (compared to a 2008 baseline) had given to the idea of using ammonia as a shipping fuel. This year, in spite of You Know What, things seem to have, if anything, accelerated.
High pressure urea equipment often has lined nozzles. A lined nozzle is a full strength carbon steel nozzle that is protected against carbamate corrosion by a 5 or 6 mm thick stainless steel liner plate, which is welded to the carbon steel nozzle on either end. This design is however very vulnerable to fatigue cracking due to the difference in thermal expansion between the austenite liner and the carbon steel nozzle. History shows that such a design will lead to cracking in the long term. The following case study reports on a serious incident in a urea plant where a leak in a urea reactor nozzle caused a plant shutdown but could have resulted in rupture of the high pressure vessel.
Maire Tecnimont subsidiary Tecnimont SpA has finalised its $350 million EPC contract with Egypt Hydrocarbon Corp. (EHC) for the construction of a new ammonia plant at Ain Sokhna. The preliminary contract was announced in September last year. The contract for the plant, which will produce 1,320 t/d of ammonia, also includes extensive utilities and offsite facilities. Project completion is scheduled for 36 months from the effective contract date, which will be triggered by financial closure of the project. Project finance is being arranged by the Italian export credit agency SACE and the US EXIM Bank. The ammonia will be used to feed an ammonium nitrate plant, already existing and in operation in the same industrial facility, also owned by EHC.