Home » Posts tagged 'ammonia'

Tag Archives: ammonia

A wave of European ammonia-plant shutdowns due to soaring natural gas prices has resulted in a devastating fertilizer crunch, worsening by the week, with as much as 70% of production offline.

“Ammonia prices, though volatile, rose 15% in 3Q and could climb higher as Europe’s record gas prices curtail output and send ammonia producers to the global market in search of replacement supplies to run upgrade facilities — with winter still around the corner,” Bloomberg Intelligence’s Alexis Maxwell wrote in a note.

As of Friday, 70% of capacity is offline across the continent, according to Fertilizers Europe, representing top regional producers.

“The current crisis begs for a swift and decisive action from EU and national policymakers for both energy and fertilizer market,” Jacob Hansen, director general of Fertilizers Europe, said in a statement.

Producers from Norway’s Yara International ASA to CF Industries to Borealis AG recently reduced or halted production because European NatGas prices hit a record high of 343 euros per megawatt hour, making it uneconomical to operate.

“We confirm we are reducing and stopping production of some fertilizer plants in the different EU sites and this for economic reasons,” a spokesperson for Borealis AG said.

Europe’s benchmark NatGas price soared nearly a third this week as Russian supplies to Europe via Nord Stream 1 pipeline have been reduced to 20% over the summer and face a temporary halt on Aug. 31 for three days.

The region’s fertilizer industry association warned the energy crisis is rippling across many industries and could heavily impact the food industry.

“We are extremely concerned that as prices of natural gas keep increasing, more plants in Europe will be forced to close.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

BASF Prepares To Slash Ammonia Production In Germany Amid Worsening NatGas Crunch

July 27, 2022

BASF Prepares To Slash Ammonia Production In Germany Amid Worsening NatGas Crunch

German chemicals company BASF SE paid an extra 800 million euros ($809.5 million) to keep its plants operating in the second quarter compared with a year earlier amid skyrocketing natural gas prices. The impact of high energy prices has forced the company to make a difficult decision: slash the production of ammonia, which could have potential consequences for farming to the food industry.

“We are reducing production at facilities that require large volumes of natural gas, such as ammonia plants,” BASF Chief Executive Martin Brudermuller said in a conference call after an earnings report.

Brudermuller said BASF would tap external suppliers to fill the deficit as German plants reduced output. He warned about potential supply disruptions that could boost fertilizer costs for farmers.

Reuters details how ammonia plays a critical role in manufacturing nitrogen-based fertilizers, plastic-making, and diesel exhaust fluid. A byproduct of ammonia production is high-purity carbon dioxide (CO2) which is heavily used in the food industry.

The news of BASF reducing ammonia production because of soaring NatGas prices comes as Russian state-owned energy producer Gazprom PJSC is expected to halve supplies via Nord Stream 1 to Europe to about 20% today. EU member states agreed Tuesday to reduce NatGas demand by 15% over the next eight months, though countries like Germany, without any liquefied natural gas (LNG) port terminals to replace Russian pipeline NatGas, might have to make more considerable sacrifices.

Benchmark NatGas prices in Europe at the Dutch TTF hub hit their highest level since March. Prices have shot up 35% in a week, over 200 euros per megawatt-hour (MWh), as Putin turns the screws on Europe by reducing pipeline capacity to Europe.

“Chemical companies are the biggest industrial natural-gas users in Germany, and ammonia is the single most gas-intensive product within that industry,” Reuters said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is ammonia from green hydrogen a false prophet?

April 17, 2022

Is ammonia from green hydrogen a false prophet?

Defra has just launched a package of measures to help farmers facing huge increases in the price of fertiliser. The cost of nitrogen fertiliser is currently three times higher than it was last year. This makes it an appropriate moment to consider the dependence of intensive agriculture on synthetic nitrogen and whether the prospect of green hydrogen to make fertiliser with a lower environmental footprint offers a long term solution.

A brief history of nitrogen fertiliser

Since the Second World War, synthetic fertilisers, especially those made from ammonia, have played a major role in agriculture on almost all farms except those using organic methods. These have driven a dramatic increase in production through higher yields, but that has come at a high environmental cost in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution from ammonia, water pollution from high levels of nitrate and biodiversity decline in terms of delicate wild flowers and plants outcompeted by ranker vegetation better able to ulitise nitrogen.

Today, the UK uses just over one million tonnes of nitrogen every year, in over three million tonnes of nitrogen fertiliser, with different products containing different proportions of nitrogen. Ammonia is produced by the Haber-Bosch process – named after German scientists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch who developed a method to produce synthetic ammonia in 1911. This process turns the inert nitrogen in the air we breathe into reactive nitrogen, by breaking the triple bond which holds nitrogen atoms together in pairs, then forcing them to combine with hydrogen. This requires a temperature of 500°C, 250 atmospheres of pressure (approximately 120 times the pressure in a typical car tyre) and an iron catalyst.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Dominos Fall As Germany’s Largest Ammonia Producer Slashes Output Amid Energy Crisis

October 6, 2021

Dominos Fall As Germany’s Largest Ammonia Producer Slashes Output Amid Energy Crisis

A natural gas shortage across Europe has created supply-chain shocks, as seen in the food industry, where problems continue to worsen. European natgas prices are at insane levels, triggering a domino effect of output reduction or closures of fertilizer plants on the continent.

Last month, two of the U.K.’s largest fertilizer factories producing 45% of domestic demand closed, and one shortly reopened with government aid. By late month, Austrian fertilizer producer Borealis AG slashed ammonia output after the cost natgas compressed margins in an industry facing tight supplies.

As the dominos fall, SKW Piesteritz, Germany’s largest ammonia producer, announced a 20% reduction in ammonia production due to the record-high natgas prices on Tuesday.

“The level that has now been reached no longer enables economically sensible production, so that we are forced to take this step,” the company told Bloomberg in an emailed statement.

“Without government action, there is a risk of production being halted shortly,” the statement continued.

We’ve seen this story play out when U.K.’s C.F. Industries shuttered two plants last month because of soaring natgas prices and caused an immediate disruption to the food industry. Then the government swooped in with emergency orders to restart at least one of the plants.

As a refresher, natgas is used to synthesize ammonia for nitrogen fertilizers for the farm industry, and a byproduct is CO2, used heavily in the food industry, for food packaging to stunning animals at slaughterhouses to bubbly soda pop.

Bloomberg’s Mike Dennis created an infographic of European natgas prices and the events surrounded by rising prices.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: ammonia

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Latest Posts