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 Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma’aden) has entered into a partnership with Metso and thyssenkrupp Uhde to develop and license an integrated process to reduce carbon emissions and recycle phosphogypsum in Saudi Arabia. A framework agreement between the three partners was jointly announced on 10th January.
Urea: December began on a positive note with a flurry of Egyptian urea sales and firmer prices for delivery to Brazil. The increase in values was short lived, however, and piecemeal demand in Europe was insufficient to halt the downward trend. By mid-December, buying interest from Brazil had fizzled out, although sellers breathed a sigh of relief when India’s NFL floated a new import tender on 21st December.
While producing ammonia with hydrogen from electrolysis remains expensive, large scale lower carbon ammonia has focused on carbon capture and storage from existing plants, so-called ‘blue’ ammonia. But exactly how green is blue?
In spite of changing patterns of demand, deglobalisation and environmental concerns, phosphate mining and acid-based processing are likely to be the mainstay of the industry for years to come.
Tampa ammonia contract prices increased dramatically during September, from $395/tonne c.fr to $575/ tonne c.fr. The main culprit was plant outages and reduced production at several plants in the region. The tight supply situation was exacerbated by a delay to the restart of Ma’aden’s 1.1 million t/a ammonia plant in Saudi Arabia.
Merchant markets for ammonia have faced considerable disruption in recent years due to the covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Adani Enterprises says that its new greenfield copper smelter at Mundra in Gujarat, being developed by its subsidiary Kutch Copper Ltd, will begin operations in March 2024. The $1.1 billion project will have an annual production capacity of 1 million t/a of copper once the second phase is complete, but the March 24 start-up will be for the first, 500,000 t/a phase. The plant will also produce 25 t/a of gold, 250 t/a of silver, and 1.5 million t/a of sulphuric acid and 250,000 t/a of phosphoric acid as by-products. India currently imports roughly two million t/a of sulphuric acid since the closure of the Vedanta smelter in Tamil Nadu.
Ammonia production at Billingham in Teesside looks set to end, bringing to a close a history of production that dates back almost a century.
Some 1,400 delegates from 533 companies and 83 countries gathered in Prague, Czech Republic, for the 90th International Fertilizer Association (IFA) Annual Conference, 22 May – 24 June 2023. We report on the main highlights of this three-day flagship event.