Tag: Urea

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues, we look ahead at fertilizer industry prospects for the next 12 months, including the key economic and agricultural drivers likely to shape the market during 2021.

Market Insight courtesy of Argus Media

The quality of finished fertilizers can be maintained during transport, handling and storage by protecting the surfaces of granules and prills with coating agents. We survey the range of anti-caking, water repellent and anti-dusting additives currently on the market.

The year 2020 will be remembered as an uncertain, demanding and challenging year. When faced with a global pandemic, companies have adopted new approaches and remote inspection, monitoring and training using the latest digital tools has been key for the successful completion of projects. Stamicarbon, Casale and KBR share some of their experiences of the past year.

The following case studies describe serious incidents associated with leak detection system failures. Incident 4 relates to the failure of the active pressurised leak detection system for the loose liner of a urea reactor and Incident 5 relates to a passive leak detection system which failed to work leading to serious corrosion of the carbon steel wall of the HP scrubber.

Building on its long experience and leading position within global ammonia production, logistics and trade, Yara says that it aims to capture opportunities in green shipping, agriculture and industrial applications; a market expected to grow by 60% over the next two decades. A major first step includes plans to fully electrify its ammonia plant at Porsgrunn, Norway, with the potential to cut 800,000 t/a of CO 2 , equivalent to the emissions from 300,000 passenger cars.

Alistair Wallace, Head of Fertilizer Research, Argus Media, assesses price trends and the market outlook for nitrogen.

Ammonia supplies have been curtailed by production shutdowns, including Kaltim and PT PAU in Indonesia, SABIC and Ma’aden in Saudi Arabia, Sorfert in Algeria and Chinese gas-based producers. There have also been gas curtailments in Iran and Trinidad.

Market Insight courtesy of Argus Media

As urea plants grow in capacity, so does the need for finishing technologies with higher capacities. Barbara Cucchiella , senior process engineer at Stamicarbon, describes how her team has risen to the challenge of the global trend for larger granulation plants.