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Nitrogen+Syngas 364 Mar-Apr 2020

Nitrogen Project Listing 2020


Nitrogen+Syngas’s annual listing of new ammonia, urea, nitric acid and ammonium nitrate plants shows that the key areas for new project developments are Egypt, India, Nigeria and Russia. The timing of new Iranian capacity remains subject to external sanctions, while other significant projects are under way in China, Brunei and Uzbekistan, and the new ammonia plant for Ma’aden in Ras Al Khair to produce diammonium phosphate. Currently however the number of new projects scheduled for beyond 2021 is relatively small, although a number of the current batch of projects are likely to slip.

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Tariff uncertainties cloud the picture

Nitrogen+Syngas went to press just a few days before Donald Trump’s swearing-in as the next president of the United States. While it is sometimes difficult to sort the truth from the hyperbole in his public pronouncements, nevertheless, if taken at face value, they would seem to indicate that we may be in for a turbulent four years in commodity markets in particular. While he is an avowed military non-interventionist, on the economic policy side he has emerged as a firm believer in the power of tariffs to alter markets in the favour of the US, and has promised 20% tariffs on all goods entering the US, potentially rising to 25% for Canada and Mexico, and 60% for his particular bugbear, China, sparking a scramble for wholesalers to stock up in the last few weeks of the Biden presidency. Trump previously raised tariffs on Chinese goods entering the US to 20% during his first term, and the Biden administration made no attempt to reverse this, and even added some additional ones, for example 20% on Russian and Moroccan phosphate imports.