Tag: Battery

The phosphate industry, the dominant consumer of sulphuric acid worldwide, has grown to its present size on the back of fertilizer consumption. And while this has seen considerable growth over the past decades, especially in countries like China, India and Brazil, it has generally been fairly steady and – subject to the annual vagaries of weather and the commodity cycle – relatively predictable. However, the world economy is now in the throes of a major transformation towards less carbon intensive generation and use of energy, and that is disrupting many markets, including that for phosphates.

2024 is my tenth year as editor of Fertilizer International magazine. But, having joined CRU in January, it’s also a fresh start.

Freeport Indonesia has inaugurated the $250 million expansion at its PT Smelting copper smelter in Gresik, East Java, in a ceremony attended by Indonesian president Joko Widodo. Smelting, a joint venture between Freeport McMoRan and Mitsubishi Materials, has increased copper concentrate processing capacity to 1.3 million t/a, up from the previous figure of 1.0 million t/a, with copper cathode production of 300,000 t/a.

The nickel market has been through a period of unprecedented change over the past few years due to demand for batteries for electric vehicles, with Indonesia becoming a centre for production via high pressure acid leaching.

Granulation technology generates a premium urea end-product in large volumes capable of withstanding lengthy storage and extreme shipping conditions. Prilling technology, meanwhile, given its typically lower investment cost, can be an attractive option for smaller-scale urea producers supplying local markets. Stamicarbon’s Dr Wilfried Dirkx, Ahmed Shams and Branislav Manic explore the technology options for urea finishing.

In a recent webinar, Chris Lawson, CRU’s Head of Fertilizers, gave the CRU view on what 2024 holds in store for the global fertilizer industry. Here are CRU’s top 10 calls for the year ahead:

Servicing the growth in electric vehicles powered by lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries could require the global purified phosphoric acid industry to double in size. Senior CRU consultant Wahome Muya explores the opportunities for unlocking growth in this emerging and fast-moving market.

The ammonia industry is expected to change drastically in the coming years to meet sustainability goals and to face the problem of climate change. New low carbon ammonia plants as well as fully green facilities are expected to be commissioned to meet the target of climate neutral production. The integration of an existing ammonia facility with green hydrogen to supplement or replace the grey ammonia production with green ammonia represents a low-risk solution to meet the requirement for running clean ammonia plants and offers the most competitive green ammonia production cost in the short term. In this article Sergio Panza and Marco M. Carlucci of Casale paper present different scenarios based on energy availability at battery limits.

Lithium ion battery production is driving major expansions in nickel and cobalt extraction, but lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery use is growing rapidly.

BHP is committed to investing $5.7 billion to complete the first stage of the Jansen project and bring it into operation by the end of 2026. This under-construction Saskatchewan mine will then ramp up to produce more than four million tonnes of potash annually before the end of the decade.