{"id":63147,"date":"2022-07-27T07:56:57","date_gmt":"2022-07-27T12:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=63147"},"modified":"2022-07-27T07:56:57","modified_gmt":"2022-07-27T12:56:57","slug":"basf-prepares-to-slash-ammonia-production-in-germany-amid-worsening-natgas-crunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=63147","title":{"rendered":"BASF Prepares To Slash Ammonia Production In Germany Amid Worsening NatGas Crunch"},"content":{"rendered":"
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BASF Prepares To Slash Ammonia Production In Germany Amid Worsening NatGas Crunch<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
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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.<\/p>\n

“We are reducing production at facilities that require large volumes of natural gas, such as ammonia plants,”<\/strong>\u00a0BASF Chief Executive Martin Brudermuller said in a conference call after an earnings report.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/a>\u00a0details 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.<\/p>\n

The news of BASF reducing ammonia production because of soaring NatGas prices comes as Russian state-owned energy producer\u00a0Gazprom PJSC is expected to halve\u00a0supplies via Nord Stream 1 to Europe to\u00a0about 20% today<\/a>. EU member states agreed Tuesday to reduce NatGas\u00a0demand by 15% over the next eight months<\/a>, though countries like Germany, without any liquefied natural gas (LNG) port terminals to replace Russian pipeline NatGas, might have to make more considerable sacrifices.<\/p>\n

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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\u00a0Putin turns the screws<\/a>\u00a0on Europe by reducing pipeline capacity to Europe.<\/p>\n

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“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.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,4,7],"tags":[31912,12142,1912,359,554,17653],"class_list":["post-63147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-ammonia","tag-basf","tag-food-production","tag-germany","tag-natural-gas","tag-natural-gas-price"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63148,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63147\/revisions\/63148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}