What lessons can be learnt from the successful commissioning and start-up of major fertilizer industry construction projects? Recent case studies from the nitrogen, phosphate and potash industries provide some interesting answers.
Market Insight courtesy of Argus Media
The Chemical & Process Technologies business unit of thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions is celebrating a milestone in 2021. It is one hundred years since engineer and entrepreneur Friedrich Uhde founded his own plant engineering company in a barn at his parents-in-law’s farm in Dortmund-Bövinghausen on April 6th, 1921. Now, in this centenary year, the origins of the firm are to become visible in its name again: thyssenkrupp is changing the business unit’s name to thyssenkrupp Uhde.
February saw ammonia prices jump due to a series of plant outages, including EBIC in Egypt, and several plants in North America, including two on Trinidad; the 760,000 t/a Nutrien 4 plant and 500,000 t/a Tringen 2 plant, both due to gas shortages, as well as Yara and BASF’s 750,000 t/a unit at Freeport, Texas.
The ammonia industry has always dealt with fluctuations in supply and demand as well as volatile feedstock and energy costs. The unexpected global pandemic that started in 2020 has injected a higher degree of uncertainty for ammonia manufacturers’ operating costs and product demand for fertilizer. W. Poe of AVEVA discusses how advanced process control systems can help ammonia producers turn economic uncertainty into a competitive advantage.
Nitrogen+Syngas’s annual listing of new ammonia, urea, nitric acid and ammonium nitrate plants.
Market Insight courtesy of Argus Media
Although the urea market has weathered the pandemic relatively well, a significant amount of new capacity is due to come on-stream in the next year or so, and could keep prices depressed unless more Chinese capacity closes.
The Belarusian Potash Company (BPC) has agreed new annual potash supply contracts with India and China.
We profile a selection of the leading players in India’s large and dynamic domestic fertilizer industry.