Nitrogen Industry News

Nitrogen Industry News

UNITED STATES

EPA and USDA competition for new fertilizer technologies

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have announced the ‘Next Gen Fertilizer Challenge’, a joint EPA-USDA partnership and competition to advance agricultural sustainability in the United States. The competition includes two challenges that seek proposals for new and existing fertilizer technologies to maintain or improve crop yields while reducing the impacts of fertilizers on the environment.

“The shared goal here is to accelerate the development of next-generation fertilizers for corn production that can either maintain or increase crop yields while reducing environmental impacts to our air, land, and water,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said.

“USDA is committed to encouraging the development of new technologies and practices to ensure that US agriculture is socially, environmentally, and economically sustainable for years to come,” Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said. “This challenge will stimulate innovation and aligns with USDA’s Agriculture Innovation Agenda announced earlier this year.”

Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, the EPA’s Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator for Science and Science Advisor added: “By evaluating the efficacy of existing technologies while sparking research and development of new technologies, these challenges explore the potential innovation that can result from academia, industry, government, and NGOs working together to address the complex issues related to excess nutrients in our environment.”

Along with EPA and USDA, the competition is coordinated with The Fertilizer Institute, the International Fertilizer Development Center, the National Corn Growers Association, and The Nature Conservancy.

The first challenge, the Environmental and Agronomic Challenge, aims to identify existing Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizers (EEFs) that meet or exceed certain environmental and agro-economic criteria. EEF is a term for new formulations that control fertilizer release or alter reactions that reduce nutrient losses to the environment. This challenge will not have a monetary prize, but winners will receive scientific evaluation of their product and recognition from EPA, USDA, and other collaborators and participants.

The second challenge, the Next Gen Fertilizer Innovations Challenge, aims to generate new concepts for novel technologies that can help address environmental concerns surrounding agriculture practices while maintaining or increasing crop yields. A panel of expert judges will review the submissions. Each winner will receive at least $10,000.

The Next Gen Fertilizer Challenge opened on August 26th, 2020. Registrants must submit their entries by October 30th, 2020, for the Environmental and Agronomic Challenge and by November 30th, 2020, for the Next Gen Fertilizer Innovations Challenge. Winners will be announced in the winter of 2021.

Large scale ‘carbon free’ ammonia plant

Chemical technology company Monolith Materials says that it plans to use its proprietary methane pyrolysis process to build a large scale (approximately 275,000 t/a) ‘carbon-free’ ammonia plant in Nebraska. The company, founded in 2012, has patented a process technology which converts natural gas into carbon black and hydrogen, producing around 3 tonnes of solid carbon per tonne of hydrogen, but avoiding CO 2 emissions to atmosphere. The company’s first commercial-scale plant, Olive Creek 1 (OC1), is currently in commissioning, and will produce approximately 14,000 t/a of carbon black. With the next phase of its facilities, the company plans to use the hydrogen generated via its manufacturing process to cleanly produce ammonia and potentially a wide array of other products that require hydrogen.

“Since its inception, Monolith Materials has been committed to developing solutions that are environmentally transformative, technologically advanced and financially viable,” said Rob Hanson, CEO of Monolith Materials and the company’s co-founder. “Being able to produce one of the world’s most essential products in a way that is carbon-free is a significant step not only for our company, but for the industry and even society as a whole.”

Hallam, Nebraska, home to the new plant, sits in the US Corn Belt, where a handful of states import over 1/7 million t/a of ammonia for agricultural use. Monolith says Olive Creek 2 will integrate with a new 180,000 t/a carbon black facility, and avoid the generation of 1 million t/a of carbon dioxide in the production of its 275,000 t/a of ammonia. The plant will also use 100% renewable electricity for its power train. Construction is expected to begin in 2021.

“This is great news for 21st-century agriculture, where we face the challenge of decarbonising age-old processes at the same time as we must scale up production to keep pace with population growth,” said Trevor Brown, executive director of the Ammonia Energy Association. “We need to deploy every available technology to accelerate this energy transition and Monolith’s methane pyrolysis process has potential to deliver low-carbon ammonia in the right place at the right scale and at the right cost.”

CF to boost nitric acid production at Donaldsonville

CF Industries says that it will invest $42.4 million to enhance nitric acid production at the Donaldsonville nitrogen fertilizer complex. Donaldsonville is the largest nitrogen complex in the world, with six world-scale ammonia plants, five urea plants, four nitric acid plants, three urea ammonium nitrate (UAN) plants and a diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) plant. The current project will increase the concentration of industrial-grade nitric acid at the site from 60% to 65% in the Nitric Acid No. 4 plant, which has a capacity of 600,000 t/a. The investment also will include the addition of an air chiller and the installation of product storage, as well as new rail car and truck loading.

CF Industries’ nitrogen complex at Donaldsonville, Louisiana.

“CF Industries is pleased to continue our long history of investing in and expanding our Donaldsonville Nitrogen Complex and creating jobs in Louisiana,” president and CEO Tony Will said. “The capital investment we are making to enhance nitric acid production at the site will further expand Donaldsonville’s production flexibility and enable us to meet strong demand for the product, particularly from Louisiana’s strong chemicals industry.”

DENMARK

Topsoe to refocus its strategy

Haldor Topsoe is reorganising in order to pursue a new strategic direction. As part of its new focus, the company is aiming to be recognised as the global leader in carbon emission reduction technologies by 2024. It is also aiming to be more customer facing, with a strong commercial set-up, effective production, and innovation to deliver technologies demanded by the market.

“We have designed an organisation with a clear focus on accelerating the development of carbon-neutral technologies, and it will be funded by continued delivery of Topsoe’s globally leading solutions for energy-efficient production of conventional fuels and chemicals,” said Roeland Baan, CEO of Haldor Topsoe. “This transformation has a very strong foundation in our exceptional R&D capabilities, world-leading technologies, and a long standing dedication to making a positive difference in the world by perfecting chemistry.

Many employees will get new responsibilities as departments and business areas are refocused to deliver on the vision, which will also result in approximately 200 redundancies.

“It is never easy to let talented employees go. I want to thank them all for being part of making Topsoe a success,” said Baan. “With our new organization in place, I am confident that Topsoe has come closer to taking a decisive role globally. The world is at a climate crossroads, and Topsoe delivers technologies that target some of the most pressing challenges. Now, we have taken the first step on a very ambitious journey defined by our new vision, and we have what it takes to reach our goal.”

The new organization will be effective from November 1st, 2020.

NETHERLANDS

Large-scale electrolyser for ammonia plant

Danish wind power company Ørsted A/S is to partner with Yara International ASA to develop a 100 MW electrolyser and produce green hydrogen for the fertiliser producer’s ammonia production in the Netherlands. The electrolyser, to be powered by energy from Ørsted’s 750 MW Borssele I and II offshore wind farms, will replace fossil fuel-based hydrogen to produce green ammonia at Yara’s plant at Sluiskil.

Ørsted said the companies will seek public co-funding to develop and build the electrolyser facility. Depending on sufficient funding and a confirmed business case, the partners could take the final investment decision in late 2021 or early 2022, in which case the project could be operational in 2024/25. If the project comes to fruition, the renewable hydrogen would generate some 75,000 t/a of green ammonia per year, or around 10% of the capacity of one of the ammonia plants in Sluiskil.

JAPAN

Joint research on ammonia-fuelled ship

NYK, IHI Power Systems Co., Ltd., and Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (ClassNK) have signed a joint research and development agreement to develop ammonia-fuelled shipping in order to meet International Maritime Organization (IMO) decarbonisation targets for shipping by 2050. Since carbon dioxide is not emitted when ammonia is burned, it is seen as a potential next-generation fuel that could mitigate shipping’s impact on global warming, provided that zero emissions can be realized by using CO2 -free hydrogen as a raw material for ammonia production.

The companies have decided to begin the joint R&D project with an ammonia-fuelled tugboat, based on work that the companies conducted in 2015 on an LNGfuelled tug, the Sakigake. The programme envisages that financial year 2020 will be spent on technological development of the hull, engine, and fuel supply system, and development of safe navigation methods, following which they will begin study of the construction of the ammonia-fuelled tug and the plan for construction. NYK Line will be responsible for research and design of the hull and fuel supply system, IHI Power Systems for research and design of the engine and exhaust gas after-treatment, and Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (ClassNK) for safety assessment.

CHILE

Green ammonia project for Enaex

Energy giant Engie and Chilean ammonium nitrate producer Enaex are looking at the construction of a solar-powered ammonia facility. The companies entered into a strategic alliance to investigate the feasibility of green ammonia production from renewable hydrogen in July 2019. The HyEx project is ultimately considering a 2,000 MW solar farm which would power a 1,600 MW hydrogen electrolysis plant to produce 124,000 t/a of green hydrogen. This in turn would be fed to an ammonia plant with a capacity of 700,000 t/a, of which half would be fed to Enaex’s ammonium nitrate plant and the rest supplied for fuel, green fertiliser production and the export market. However, full scale operation is not expected before 2030, and the initial pilot facility would include a 36 MW solar plant, a 26 MW hydrogen electrolyser and 18,000 t/a of ammonia production, with a target completion date of 2024.

Enaex’s ammonium nitrate plant is in the Mejillones district in the Antofagasta province in Chile’s north, about 1,400 km north of Santiago, the centre of the country’s copper mining industry. Currently the ammonia for the plant is imported.

Engie is also working with Australian mining technology developer Mining3 to codevelop hydrogen solutions for the mining industry. The first of these, the Hydra project, is to develop a new power train and refuelling system for mining vehicles to run on methanol produced from green hydrogen instead of diesel. Hydra has been awarded $320,000 funding by the Chilean economic development agency CORFO to support design and development studies. The goal is to scale up the solution to convert mining vehicles at several mining sites in Chile using hydrogen from wind farms in Cabo Negro north of Punta Arenas in the south of Chile to produce green methanol and fuel for transport. The initial production targeted is 350 t/a of green methanol and 250 t/a of carbon neutral fuel.

SAUDI ARABI

CO2 removal facility for Ma’aden

Daelim Industrial says that it has successfully installed a carbon dioxide removal facility at the new ammonia production plant it is building in Saudi Arabia. The site is located at Ras al-Khair, 80 km north of Jubail on the east coast of Saudi Arabia. The $960 million project was awarded by state-run mining company Ma’aden, and is being carried out by Daelim Industrial on an EPC lump sum turnkey basis. Ground was broken in November 2018 and 61% of the work has been done. Daelim says that it will complete the project in the second half of 2021.

‘Blue’ ammonia shipment to Japan

Saudi Aramco says that it has made the world’s first shipment of 40 tonnes of ‘blue’ ammonia to Japan, where it will be used in power stations to produce electricity without carbon emissions. Aramco produced the ammonia from natural gas with capture of the associated carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery (EOR).

TRINIDAD & TOBAGO

Nutrien ammonia plant closed “indefinitely”

Nutrien says that it has closed PCS-03, one of its for ammonia plants on Trinidad, for an indefinite period, with the layoff of 50 workers, due to low ammonia prices. The company’s other two plants and the associated urea facility will continue to operate at maximum capacity, it added. Another plant, PCS-02, was taken offline in May due to market conditions and is expected to come back online as conditions improve. The company added that it will be ensuring customers will be supported and there are no changes to existing supplier contractual agreements.

CHINA

Training on cloud-based urea plant simulator

Stamicarbon says that Hubei Sanning Chemical Industrial Co., Ltd at Zhijiang will be its first client to receive operator training remotely; in this case an intensive five day training course with multiple operator trainees simulating the plant operation simultaneously. The training uses a urea plant simulator with cloud solution (made with Protomation technology), enabling operator training to be performed remotely. This allows Stamicarbon to gain a deeper understanding of plant process dynamics, which in turn leads to process improvements, knowledge feedback and improved start-up training for operators. Urea plants designed with Stamicarbon’s Ultra Low Energy Design (ULED) such as the one under construction at Sanning, come with the urea simulator built-in.

“This is really exciting. We can now give operators hands-on training and help them to be well prepared, without physically being there,” said Rahul Patil, Senior Process Engineer at Stamicarbon. “Especially in the current situation, with continuing travel restrictions, we are pleased to be able to support our clients remotely.”

INDIA

Bids invited for settlement of Matix debt

A consortium of lenders led by IDBI Bank has invited bids for settlement of their outstanding debt of around $600 million to Matix Fertilisers and Chemicals Ltd (MFCL) after they received a one-time settlement offer (OTS) from the company. The eleven-lender consortium, which around 70% of the outstanding debt in the company, has agreed for settlement of the debt against the OTS offer based on the “Swiss Challenge” process according to SBI Capital Market, whom the other lenders have mandated to resolve the company’s outstanding debt.

Matix operates a 730,000 t/a gas-based ammonia plant at Panagarh Industrial Park, West Bengal with 1.27 million t/a of downstream urea capacity, as well as a 54 MW captive power plant, water reservoir, railway siding, steam generation and other utilities. It was due to begin operations in 2014 based on local coal-bed methane to be supplied by Essar Oil Ltd. However, when that supply was not forthcoming, it was only able to operate for 45 days in late 2017 and had to suspend operations due to a lack of working capital and availability of adequate gas, leading Matix to subsequently default on its debt.

BRAZIL

Petrobras to sell Araucaria

Petrobras has begun the process of selling it fertilizer subsidiary Araucária Nitrogenados SA, located in the state of Parana. The state-run oil giant plans to sell all 100% of its operating interest in the company, as part of its strategy to cut costs and improve its capital position, which has been worsened by low oil prices and the Covid pandemic. Petrobras continues to carry $87 billion in outstanding debt.

Araucária has a total capacity of 1,975 t/d of urea and 1,303 t/d of ammonia, but has been shut down for economic reasons since January 2020. Petrobras says that any buyer will be responsible for whatever work is required to restart production.