Tag: Urea

Merchant markets for ammonia have faced considerable disruption in recent years due to the covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

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.

Ballestra is taking a new approach to improving nutrient use efficiency by moving methylene-urea production to the fertilizer industry. Massimo Gori and Svet Valkov of Ballestra discuss the technology and benefits of having a slow-release fertilizer that uses a product from within the fertilizer industry.

Proman has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Mitsubishi Corp to collaborate on the development of a blue ammonia plant at Lake Charles, Louisiana. This new facility will aim to produce around 1.2 million t/a of low carbon ammonia, making it one of the largest of its kind in the world. The plant will incorporate carbon capture and sequestration technology. Proman says that this development aligns with the company’s commitment to sustainability and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The proposed ammonia plant will be located at Proman’s existing site in Lake Charles, adjacent to its gas-to-methanol plant, which is also currently being developed.

Rohit Khurana and Umesh Jainker of KBR presented a technical paper on this topic during the 2013 Asian Nitrogen + Syngas Conference. It can be found in the UreaKnowHow.com E-Library with the title: ”Replacing ammonia plant catalyst with maximum efficiency and lowest cost”. The paper addresses the importance of de-dusting catalyst beds before commissioning and the serious impacts on the plant if not performed thoroughly. Many ammonia plants have faced problems related to the plugging of exchangers, pipe choking, pressure drop increase of the downstream catalyst beds and separators or foaming in the CO 2 removal section which could be caused by the presence of catalyst dust. Most of these problems have led to either decrease in the efficiency of the plant or operation at lower throughputs. The paper presents the critical steps and procedures for proper dedusting of the catalyst beds before commissioning. In addition, the foaming problem in the CO 2 removal section associated with catalyst dust is discussed signifying the importance of cleaning the CO 2 removal system and solution. The role of filters in the CO 2 removal section was also emphasised.

Market Insight courtesy of Argus Media

CF Fertilisers UK Limited, a subsidiary of CF Industries, says that it plans to permanently close the ammonia plant at its Billingham fertilizer complex in order to secure the long-term sustainability of its business in the UK. The Company intends to continue to produce ammonium nitrate (AN) fertiliser and nitric acid at the Billingham site using imported ammonia, as it has for the last 10 months following its decision to temporarily idle the plant in August 2022.

TOYO’s digital twin concept combines its unique digital twin at both the project execution stage and the commissioning stage, and when used in conjunction with its proprietary process simulator it can predict the whole plant lifecycle.

Ammonia prices have now dropped by about 50% from their highs a year ago. Gas prices have fallen, particularly in Europe, and peak fertilizer application season is over in Europe and North America, leading to slackening demand., leading to slackening demand.

Prior to the covid pandemic, sub-Saharan Africa had been the fastest growing market for new fertilizer demand. However, the combination of pandemic related disruption, followed by the dislocations caused by the war in Ukraine, have pushed up prices and led to falling demand across the continent.