Tag: CF Industries

BASF says that its high-pressure regenerative CO2 capture technology HiPACT ® , codeveloped by BASF and engineering partner JGC Corporation will be used by INPEX, one of Japan’s largest exploration and production companies, in its Kashiwazaki Clean Hydrogen/Ammonia Project. This is Japan’s first demonstration project for the production of blue hydrogen/ammonia from domestically produced natural gas, the consistent implementation of carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) in domestic depleted gas fields and the use of hydrogen for power generation and ammonia production. The project is funded by the Japanese governmental organization New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).

A review of the current slate of plans for green and blue ammonia production.

Stamicarbon has won a contract for a large-scale urea project in China. The urea plant, with a production capacity of 3,800 t/d, will be the largest ever licensed by Stamicarbon in the country. The customer, the plant’s location and the value of the contract have not been disclosed.

Yara International has approved a project to partly convert its Pilbara plant near Karratha in Western Australia to green ammonia production.

CRU Events will host the 2023 Fertilizer Latino Americano conference at the Sheraton Grand Rio Hotel & Resort, Rio de Janeiro, 29 January to 1 February.

Topsoe has agreed to supply an initial 500 MW of industrial-scale, solid oxide electrolyser cells (SOEC) to First Ammonia, a US company aiming to produce green ammonia for transportation fuel, power storage and generation, as well as fertilizer, at sites in northern Germany and the southwestern United States. The companies envisage that over the lifetime of the agreement some 5 GW of SOEC electrolysers will be supplied, potentially replacing almost 5 bcm of natural gas and eliminating the emission of 13 million t/a of CO 2 emissions. The facility to manufacture the electrolyser cells will be built in Herning, Denmark, and has recently received a final investment decisions from Topsoe’s board.

The ammonia market appears to be oversupplied as of the end of October 2022, with a ready availability of spot cargoes. Coupled with increased availability from European producers due to an easing of gas prices, this seemed to indicate bearish market sentiment for the immediate future.

Venkat Pattabathula, a member of the AIChE Ammonia Safety Committee, reports on the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Safety in Ammonia Plants and Related Facilities Symposium, held at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago, USA, on 11-15 September 2022.

As we near the end of the third quarter of 2022, the attention of the nitrogen industry is focused on the coming northern hemisphere winter, and the prospects for higher natural gas prices as temperatures fall and power and heating demands rise. Vladimir Putin has been stoking these worries to try and force a climbdown from European countries over the sanctions that followed his invasion of Ukraine, with the flow of gas through the Nordstream 1 pipeline across the Baltic Sea gradually dwindling over the summer and finally stopping altogether at the end of August due to “technical issues” – an explanation somewhat undermined by the subsequent statement from spokesman Dmitry Peskov that gas would flow again once sanctions were eased. This is a familiar enough tactic; Russia has used gas stoppages to pressure Ukraine and Europe several times over the past two decades.

Overall the market finds itself in a period of illiquidity, and is exposed to further uncertainty in 4Q because of the European energy crisis. Spiralling natural gas costs in Europe, with Dutch TTF gas prices trading around e200/MWh, are forcing European fertilizer producers to close ammonia capacity and buy in from overseas.