
Fertilizer Industry News Roundup
Yara International has approved a project to partly convert its Pilbara plant near Karratha in Western Australia to green ammonia production.
Yara International has approved a project to partly convert its Pilbara plant near Karratha in Western Australia to green ammonia production.
After just 10 short years in business, there is a reason why Verdesian Life Sciences has lived up to its mantra ‘the Nutrient Use Efficiency People’. This is not just a slogan – it defines the company’s philosophy and culture. It also sums up Verdesian’s mission to help the world’s farmers do more with less through the company’s broad portfolio of sustainable nutrient efficiency products.
Market Insight courtesy of Argus Media
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.
Casale has developed a range of methanol-ammonia coproduction processes to match different requirements according to product capacity.
The latest improvements to melamine process technology now make it even easier to integrate a melamine plant with an ammonia and urea fertilizer complex. Guido Canti of Eurotecnica and Marc Wieschalla of thyssenkrupp Uhde discuss the benefits of plant integration.
Industry focus on technologies to reduce the carbon intensity of ammonia and methanol production has been intensifying. In this article thyssenkrupp Uhde, Proton Ventures, Toyo Engineering Corporation, Stamicarbon, BD Energy Systems and KBR report on some of their latest technology developments towards decarbonisation.
Leaks in the high-pressure synthesis section of a urea plant may lead to catastrophic consequences. UreaKnowHow.com started to collect incidents in an incident database and in 2017 AmmoniaKnowHow.com and UreaKnowHow.com introduced FIORDA, the Fertilizer Industry Operational Risk Database, a global open source risk register for ammonia and urea plants.
Maire Tecnimont’s innovation and licensing company Stamicarbon has been selected as the licensor for a urea project in sub-Saharan Africa, its first license in the region. Stamicarbon will deliver the process design package for the front-end engineering and design for a 4,000 t/d urea melt and granulation plant. The urea melt plant with a pool reactor will use Stamicarbon’s MP Flash design, a melt concept with improved energy efficiency, entailing a significant reduction of steam consumption. The minimal equipment items result in a significant reduction of the footprint and the overall capital cost of the plant. Less equipment also allows for a reduction in maintenance costs and OPEX savings.