Tag: Ammonia

Prices in most markets should register declines through January, though the extent to which benchmarks will ease is yet unclear. Chinese suppliers have seen significant price declines in recent weeks.

Carbon Recycling International (CRI), which operates a geothermally powered green methanol plant at Svartsengi, 40km southwest of Reykjavik, had to evacuate its site in late November when a 3km fissure opened in the earth a few kilometres away and lava began spilling across adjacent land. Satellite photos of the area taken on November 24 show a large field of molten and cooled lava to the north, west, and south of Svartsengi, though the plant itself remained undamaged. CRI’s Iceland facility runs on CO2 , water, and renewable electricity from the Svartsengi geothermal power station. CRI says the low-carbon energy source allows it to produce 4,000 t/a of methanol with a greenhouse gas footprint just 10–20% that of conventional methanol.

Syngas generation units (SGU) represent a large portion of the capital and operational expenditure of ammonia plants and are critical from a mechanical reliability standpoint. Related capex/opex optimisation and mitigation of possible operational problems are key targets for ammonia plant owners. Giovanni Manenti introduces NITROQUENCH® technology which focuses on these key targets for ammonia SGU.

Expensive feedstock, overseas competition and tightening environmental regulations all pose potential threats to Europe’s nitrogen industry.

A complete list of all articles and news items appearing in Nitrogen+Syngas magazine during 2024.

While there is still a considerable push for use of biomass waste as a lower carbon feedstock for chemical production via gasification to syngas, biological processes such as fermentation are increasingly gaining traction as an alternative.

Brazil’s state-controlled oil company Petrobras plans to resume construction of its UFN-III nitrogen fertilizer unit in Tres Lagoas, Mato Grosso do Sul state.

Market snapshot, 2nd January 2025

While underlying supply and demand criteria continue to set floors and ceilings for nitrogen and other syngas derived products, political events as ever have the potential to derail all calculations. While much attention has focused on the US election, the escalating crisis in the Middle East continues to have the potential to threaten fertilizer trade in multiple ways. As this issue was going to press, Israel had just launched its retaliatory missile strike on Tehran, on October 26th, the latest in a series of tit for tat attacks between Israel and Iran, in particular an Iranian missile strike on Israel on October 1st. The Iranian government appeared to be downplaying the results as “limited”, but said that it considered itself “entitled and obligated to defend itself”.

In October, ammonia benchmarks were more or less stable across the board. West of Suez, supply from Algeria was constrained by an ongoing turnaround at one of domestic player Sorfert’s production units. Still, demand from NW Europe remained quiet, although CF was set to receive a 15,000 tonne spot cargo from Hexagon some time in November, reportedly sourced somewhere in the region of $530/t f.o.b. Turkey. While regional supply appeared tight, steadily improving output from Trinidad and the US Gulf could alleviate recent pressures, with many players of the opinion that Yara and Mosaic could agree a $560/t c.fr rollover for November at Tampa as a result.