Yara

A first in the Brazilian market, Yara has commenced the production of biomethane-based nitrate fertilisers at its Cubatão complex, reducing the carbon footprint by up to 75%. The first batch of the low carbon fertiliser has been delivered to coffee farmers in the Cooxupe cooperative.

Yara is expanding its capabilities for import of low-emission ammonia across Europe, with new infrastructure and a series of offtake agreements already announced in 2024. Hear more from Yara Clean Ammonia CEO Hans Olav Raen at our upcoming annual conference.

Led by the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation, a consortium has successfully executed a ship-to-ship ammonia transfer in outer anchorage, simulating ammonia bunker fuel operations within a port for the first time.

Yara has secured a long-term supply from ATOME’s Villeta project in Paraguay. Hydropower from the Itaipu Dam will power the production of electrolytic hydrogen, ammonia and then calcium ammonium nitrate fertiliser, which will be marketed and sold as part of Yara’s “Climate Choice” product line.

More than $37 billion will be invested across the initial stages of hydrogen and ammonia production projects, ranging in location from the Gulf of Suez to west of the Nile Delta. A series of agreements concerning existing and newly-announced projects were signed at the recent Egypt-EU Investment Conference.

WinGD’s X‑DF‑A dual-fuel engines have been ordered by Singapore-based shipping giant AET for deployment onboard new Aframax tankers, being built in China. Fishing vessels operators Vardin and Framherji have ordered Wärtsilä 25 engines for a series of three fishing trawlers that will operate in the Faroe Islands. In construction news, CMB.TECH will build the Yara Eyde vessel for Yara and North Sea Container Line in China, with vessel delivery scheduled for mid-2026.

Yara and Azane have received approval from Norway’s Directorate for Civil Protection to construct their first ammonia bunker facility at Fjord Base, with the bulk of bunker operations to provide offshore supply vessels with ammonia fuel. In the Netherlands, the Dutch EPA has granted a permit to OCI Global to construct a 60,000 ton ammonia storage tank in Rotterdam, based on requirements that will feature in the updated version of PGS-12.

In marine ammonia news to begin 2024, we explore a volume-efficient, “prismatic” ammonia fuel tank design, a new long-term charter for ammonia shipping in the Pacific region, and two global gas exporters ordering ammonia-capable carriers for their fleets.

Höegh expects the first pair of ammonia-powered car carriers to be delivered late next year from China Merchants Heavy Industry at the Jiangsu Shipyard in China. This month, a new LNG/ammonia tank was installed in the first of the vessels, and MAN ES engines have arrived from Korea, with installation to take place in early December. Höegh has also announced a partnership with Yara Clean Ammonia to develop a future supply of ammonia fuel for the vessels.

Decarbonization of existing steam methane reforming-based ammonia plants is possible, and changes in gas and heat flows can be recovered via alternative technologies. Recap our workshop in Atlanta, where we discussed the use of upstream methane monitoring equipment, electrolysers, carbon capture, hydrogen burners, energy storage and electric heating to achieve decarbonization of conventional ammonia plants.

Yara and Bunker Holding will look to accelerate the supply of ammonia bunker fuel to first movers in the shipping industry, focusing on key trading routes and port locations. In Norway, Equinor and Azane Fuel Solutions will undertake a new project, aiming to demonstrate how Norway’s offshore sector can be decarbonised by 2030 via the use of clean ammonia fuel.

The West Australian state government has allocated land to four organisations as it progresses development of the Pilbara Hydrogen Hub. Fortescue Future Industries, Yara, Hexagon and Perdaman have all been selected to participate, adding to the list of ammonia projects already underway in the region.

New industry partnerships between suppliers, offtakers and existing infrastructure owners will boost confidence for project developers in the fast-growing renewable ammonia industry. Recent announcements from Namibia, Germany and Norway demonstrate that a comprehensive ammonia supply chain is being established between Europe and key global locations, making FID & project investment decisions more straightforward.

Yara Clean Ammonia and Enbridge will jointly develop a CCS-based ammonia production facility in Corpus Christi, Texas. Located at the Enbridge Ingleside Energy Centre, as much as 1.4 million tonnes of ammonia per year will be produced, with Yara expected to act as full offtaker.

Grieg Star and a series of high-profile maritime consortium partners have assessed the full feasibility for retrofitting a Grieg Star L-Class vessel to run on ammonia fuel. The study concludes that technical & regulatory challenges will not be showstoppers in the transition. A combination of high investment costs, uncertainty over ammonia fuel availability & pricing and slow market development remain the biggest barriers, presenting significant risks for first movers.

JERA has signed MoUs this week with two significant ammonia producers, potentially securing the supply of one million tonnes of clean ammonia fuel to Japan each year from 2027. JERA has signed exploratory agreements for 500,000 tonnes of clean ammonia fuel each with CF Industries and Yara Clean Ammonia, and will also explore investment options in greenfield mega-projects on the US Gulf Coast.

Amogy’s ammonia-to-power system will be retrofitted onto a tank barge operated by Southern Devall, a Louisiana-based organisation specialising in bulk chemical and fertiliser transport throughout the Mississippi River and Gulf Intracoastal Waterway System. The retrofit is due to be complete in late 2023, and following successful trials more vessels in Southern Devall’s fleet will be retrofitted to run on ammonia fuel.

ENGIE has successfully reached a final investment decision on Project Yuri. The collaboration with Yara will see renewable hydrogen feedstock produced next door to Yara’s existing ammonia & fertiliser production facility in Karratha, Western Australia, with construction to commence this year, and production of renewable hydrogen to begin in 2024.

In further developments, Yuri has new stakeholders, with Mitsui & Co. securing a 28% interest stake in Yuri, and Technip Energy being selected to lead EPCC works. And in certification news, the Smart Energy Council also announced it has granted pre-certification for renewable hydrogen & ammonia production from Project Yuri, under the Zero Carbon Certification Scheme.

Yara and Northern Lights have signed the world’s first commercial agreement for cross border CO₂ transport and storage. Emissions from the Sluiskil production plant in the Netherlands will be captured, processed and transported for sequestration at the Northern Lights storage site off the coast of Norway. Yara is pursuing multiple decarbonisation options for the Sluiskil plant, including this CCS announcement, waste hydrogen, and offshore wind-to-hydrogen as part of Ørsted’s larger SeaH2Land project.

Yara and a consortium of industrial partners will join forces to develop a CCS project near the cities of Ravenna and Ferrara in northern Italy. The partners represent a wide range of energy-intensive industries, including Yara’s two fertiliser & urea production plants. The Ravenna project would capture emissions from industrial facilities in the area, transport and permanently store them in depleted gas fields in the Adriatic Sea. The project is the first of its kind in Italy.

Yara Clean Ammonia has committed to complete off-take from the first phase of ACME and Scatec’s new renewable ammonia production plant in Oman. Yara will off-take 100,000 tonnes per year, with a potential for more as the plant expands towards full capacity. The announcement joins a series promising off-take agreements signed within the last twelve months.

Yara Clean Ammonia, together with NCE Maritime CleanTech and with analysis support from DNV, have delivered a volume analysis and roadmap for the use of renewable ammonia in the Norwegian domestic shipping sector. With the right policy levers in place, renewable ammonia can meet and reach beyond the 2030 decarbonisation targets for the Norwegian domestic fleet, reducing emissions by as much as 69%.

Yara has pre-ordered fifteen of Azane Fuel Solutions’ ammonia bunker terminal units. Once delivered, the pair will work to establish a carbon-free ammonia fuel bunker network in Scandinavia. Also this week, Amon Maritime (a founding partner of Azane Fuel Solutions), launched a new ship management company that will specialize in ammonia-fueled vessels.

Yara and Lantmännen - northern Europe's leading agricultural cooperative who own multiple food brands - have signed a world-first agreement for the marketing & distribution of fossil-free fertilisers from 2023.

Enova - Norway's government-owned, clean energy investment enterprise - announced funding to support some key ammonia energy projects currently in progress:

1. New Funding guarantees a final investment decision for the pilot phase of electrifying Yara's Herøya (Porsgrunn) ammonia plant.

2. Horisont Energi's Barents Blue project will now participate in the Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI) Hydrogen scheme.

3. And Viridis Bulk Carriers will receive a to-be-determined amount from to develop the first ammonia-powered cargo short sea bulk vessel in its future north European fleet.

Thirty-four leading global organisations, the World Economic Forum and the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry have founded a new group: the First Movers Coalition. The group's purpose is to invest in green technologies so they are available for massive scale-up by 2030, allowing for rapid decarbonisation of the hardest-to-abate industries. The implications for ammonia energy are huge, as many of the group's founding members are already deeply involved in the space.

Under the new MoU, Yara and Kyushu Electric will work to establish clean ammonia supply chains to decarbonise coal-fired power generation in Kyushu, Japan. The MoU also foreshadows the pair will promote the use of ammonia energy solutions in other sectors on Japan's third-largest island.

Air Liquide, Borealis, Esso, TotalEnergies and Yara signed a new MoU this week to assess the technical and economical feasibility of implementing an industrial CO2 capture and storage (CCS) chain, from their industrial facilities in Normandy to ultimate storage in the North Sea. For Yara’s Le Havre ammonia production plant, the project could deliver "100,000 tons Blue Ammonia."

This week: a roadmap for ammonia-fueled gas turbines in Asia, ammonia solutions in Iceland, IMO sets new decarbonisation milestone, new ammonia-powered vessels planned, maritime study developments, Australian updates (Fortescue, AREH and Itochu in Gladstone), Fertiglobe joins Abu Dhabi blue ammonia project and Statkraft's Porsgrunn plans.

Welcome to the Ammonia Wrap: a summary of all the latest announcements, news items and publications about ammonia energy. There's so much news this edition that we're bringing you two, special Wrap articles. Our second focuses on maritime ammonia & supply chain development. This week: Bureau Veritas releases "Ammonia-Prepared" notation, Höegh Autoliners' ammonia-powered car-carrier to hit the water by 2023, Yara and JERA to collaborate, Japan's Kobe Port moves towards hydrogen and ammonia, New partners for Itochu/Vopak study in Singapore, and a new Voltachem ammonia study shows need for cross-border cooperation in EU.

Welcome to the Ammonia Wrap: a summary of all the latest announcements, news items and publications about ammonia energy. This week: Ørsted unveils its P2X vision for the North Sea, energy trader Gunvor commits $500 million to sustainability, emissions reductions, finance world backs green hydrogen, Hydrofuel and Ontario Tech join forces and a new blue hydrogen/ammonia collaboration.

Welcome to the Ammonia Wrap: a summary of all the latest announcements, news items and publications about ammonia energy. This week: new Japanese developments, new AiP for ammonia-fueled vessel, Singapore bunkering study, new ammonia from wastewater initiative, Fortescue brings carbon neutrality goals forward to 2030, Australian project updates for Hazer and H2U, and H2Pro updates from Israel.

Welcome to the Ammonia Wrap: a summary of all the latest announcements, news items and publications about ammonia energy. This week: commercialised ammonia gas turbines, TDK and GenCell join forces, another GW of green ammonia production, small-scale green ammonia in rural Japan, hydroelectric ammonia in Laos, Viking Energy vessel updates, new partnerships for Haldor Topsoe and "any-fuel" high-temp PEM fuel cells.

What key challenges lie ahead as ammonia producers embark on the transition to low and zero-carbon ammonia? What are the big producers already doing to smooth and later accelerate this transition? On November 19, 2020, the Ammonia Energy Association (AEA) hosted a panel discussion moderated by Steve Crolius from Carbon Neutral Consulting, as well as panel members Sammy van den Broeck from Yara, Ashraf Malik from CF Industries, and Trevor Williams from Nutrien as part of the recent Ammonia Energy Conference.

There were two new funding announcements last week concerning Yara’s YURI renewable ammonia project, to be built next to their Pilbara fertiliser plant in Western Australia. The Pilbara ammonia plant is an ideal demonstration site for green hydrogen and green ammonia at an industrial scale. This export-oriented plant has an annual capacity of 850,000 tons per year of ammonia, representing about 5% of the world’s merchant ammonia supply, and while the current site uses natural gas as fuel and feedstock it is situated adjacent to rich solar and wind energy resources. These announcements show that interest in YURI is strong from Australian local, state, and federal governments, with more funding opportunities in the pipeline.

Last month UN Climate Change announced an initiative whose goal is to scale up green hydrogen production significantly over the next six years. “The new ‘Green Hydrogen Catapult’ initiative will see green hydrogen industry leaders, including ACWA Power, CWP Renewables, Envision, Iberdrola, Ørsted, Snam, and Yara, target the deployment of 25 gigawatts through 2026 of renewables-based hydrogen production, with a view to halve the current cost of hydrogen to below US$2 per kilogram.”

Last week, two new low-carbon ammonia production projects were announced, both of them large-scale and largely CO2-free. Monolith Materials announced a 275,000 ton per year “clean ammonia” plant in Nebraska, in the heart of the US cornbelt. The plant will begin construction in 2021, expanding the existing demonstration plant, using Monolith’s methane pyrolysis process powered by 100% renewable electricity. Ørsted and Yara announced their plan to produce 75,000 tons per year of “green ammonia” at Yara’s existing Sluiskil plant in the Netherlands. They intend to install a 100 MW electrolyzer, using Ørsted’s offshore wind energy, with a final investment decision expected in 2021-2022, and production beginning in 2024-2025.

Pandemic or no pandemic, the Australian chapter of the Ammonia Energy Association (AEA Australia) will hold a second edition of its Ammonia = Hydrogen 2.0 Conference this year. The event will be held on a virtual basis on August 27 and 28 from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. (Australian Eastern Standard Time) each day. The conference tagline is “Building an energy export industry using Green Ammonia.” Its themes this year will be “green ammonia production — jobs for the regions;” “ammonia as maritime bunker fuel;” and “ammonia certification schemes.” The opening address, entitled “Ammonia — is it a fuel, or is it an energy carrier?” will be given by Alan Finkel, Chief Scientist of the Australian Government.

At least four major maritime ammonia projects have been announced in the last few weeks, each of which aims to demonstrate an ammonia-fueled vessel operating at sea. In Norway, Color Fantasy, the world's largest RORO cruise liner, will pilot ammonia fuel. Across the broader Nordic region, the Global Maritime Forum has launched NoGAPS, a major consortium that aims to deploy "the world's first ammonia powered deep sea vessel" by 2025. In Japan, a new industry consortium has launched that goes beyond on-board ship technology to include "owning and operating the ships, supplying ammonia fuel and developing ammonia supply facilities." And the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), which published its roadmap last month, aims to demonstrate ammonia fuel on "an actual ship from 2028" — specifically, a 80,000 dwt ammonia-fueled bulk carrier.

IN BRIEF: According to industry data reported by Rystad Energy in April 2020, ammonia producers are developing the majority of renewable hydrogen projects in Australia. The project pipeline counts more than 400 MW of electrolyzer installations planned for green ammonia production, from a nationwide total of 700 MW.

This morning, it was announced that the "Viking Energy," a supply vessel for Equinor's offshore operations, will be modified to run on a 2 MW direct ammonia fuel cell. This will be a five year project: the technology will be scaled-up on land before being installed on the vessel, which will begin a year of GHG emission-free operations in 2024. The Norwegian partners leading this "world's first" project include shipowner Eidesvik, contractor Equinor, and ammonia producer Yara, as well as Wärtsilä (Wärtsilä Norway), responsible for power technology and ammonia storage and distribution systems, and Prototech, delivering the fuel cell system.

Last month a group of researchers from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology published a paper, “Decoupled hydrogen and oxygen evolution by a two-step electrochemical–chemical cycle for efficient overall water splitting,” in the journal Nature Energy.  The key word in the title is “efficient.”  In a September 15 Technion press release, the researchers state that their technology “facilitates an unprecedented energetic efficiency of 98.7% in the production of hydrogen from water.”  Applied to the appropriate use case, the technology could lead to a major improvement in green ammonia’s ability to compete with brown ammonia and other low-carbon energy carriers.

This week, two Norwegian companies, fertilizer producer Yara and electrolyzer manufacturer Nel, announced an agreement to test Nel's "next generation" alkaline electrolyzer at an ammonia production site. The parties expect to begin operating a 5 MW prototype in 2022, feeding green hydrogen directly into Yara's 500,000 ton per year ammonia plant at Porsgrunn.

Yara International today published a video promoting Green Ammonia, which it states will be key to meeting its new corporate target of "making Yara carbon-neutral by 2050." The timing of this publication is highly appropriate because, also today, we announce the full program for our 16th annual Ammonia Energy Conference, which features a Keynote Speech from Rob Stevens of Yara's Decarbonize division.

This year's ammonia conference in Rotterdam, the third annual NH3 Event, begins two weeks from today. Since our guest post in March, announcing the initial roster of conference speakers, the organizers have confirmed new speakers, added more sessions, and announced further details. The NH3 Event is a two-day conference, taking place on June 6 & 7, presenting "state of the art solutions and innovations on the subject of Sustainable Ammonia." Although the conference hall is already close to capacity, a few dozen tickets remain available through the NH3 Event website.

This week, Yara announced major progress toward producing "green ammonia" at its plant in Pilbara, Australia. Its new partner in this project is ENGIE, the global energy and services group, which last year made a major commitment to developing large-scale renewable hydrogen projects. I first reported Yara's plans for a solar ammonia demonstration at its Pilbara plant in September 2017. This week's announcement means that the Pilbara project has moved to the next feasibility phase. However, major elements of the project have already been designed and built: during last year's scheduled turnaround for plant maintenance, the hydrogen piping tie-in was completed - meaning that the Haber-Bosch unit is ready to receive hydrogen directly, as soon as an electrolyzer has been built to supply it with renewable feedstock.

Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago that sits far above the Arctic Circle, is being considered for the back end of an electricity-to-ammonia-to-electricity (P2A2P) scheme.  As reported in Norway's Teknisk Ukeblad (TU), the state-owned utility Statkraft has surfaced ammonia as one of four possible hydrogen-oriented solutions to meet Svalbard’s energy needs – and then short-listed it for further study.

In the last 12 months ... Ammonia Energy has published posts covering pertinent activity in 32 different countries.  In most of them, ammonia’s potential as versatile energy vector has reached the point of avowed interest from relevant institutions.  In a small handful, it has become a part of national policy.  But, as demonstrated in repeated instances throughout the year, nowhere is ammonia energy more robustly embraced than Australia.  The central argument behind this assertion is captured in the phrase, “the complete package,” as in “package of resources, policies, players, partners, and investments.”

On July 13, Science magazine, the flagship publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), published a 2,800-word “feature article" on ammonia energy. The article, headlined, “Liquid sunshine: Ammonia made from sun, air, and water could turn Australia into a renewable energy superpower,” is uniformly open-minded and upbeat.  Its opening section ends with a quote from Monash University Professor of Physics and Chemistry Doug MacFarlane; “’Liquid ammonia is liquid energy,’ he says. ‘It's the sustainable technology we need.’” MacFarlane helped launch the Australian chapter of the NH3 Fuel Association.

Last week, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) formally adopted its Initial GHG Strategy. This means that the shipping industry has committed to "reduce the total annual GHG emissions by at least 50% by 2050," and completely "phase them out, as soon as possible in this century." This also means that a global industry is searching for a very large quantity of carbon-free liquid fuel, with a production and distribution infrastructure that can be scaled up within decades. The most viable option is ammonia. How much would be required? Roughly one million tons of ammonia per day.

New ammonia production capacity is being built in southern Africa. The outputs will support agricultural development in the region – but could also support development of ammonia as a universal energy commodity. A British start-up company is currently at work to develop a beachhead use case for ammonia energy.

Last month, a heavyweight consortium of local and global companies announced plans to collaborate on a project to design, build, operate, and evaluate a demonstration plant to produce "green ammonia" from water, air, and renewable energy in The Netherlands. This is one practical outcome of last year's Power-to-Ammonia study, which examined the economic and technical feasibility of using tidal power off the island of Goeree-Overflakkee in Zuid-Holland to power a 25 MWe electrolyzer unit, and feed renewable hydrogen to a 20,000 ton per year green ammonia plant. This new demonstration plant phase of the project will still be led by the original developer, Dutch mini-ammonia plant developer Proton Ventures. However, its partners in the venture now include Yara and Siemens, as well as speciality fertilizer producer Van Iperen, and local sustainable agricultural producer, the Van Peperstraten Groep.

The NH3 Fuel Association (NH3FA) has released the names of the organization’s charter group of sponsors. The common thread that unites the six companies? A conviction that ammonia energy represents a significant opportunity for their businesses. The sponsors are Yara, Nel Hydrogen, Airgas, Haldor Topsoe, Casale, and Terrestrial Energy.

The viability of producing ammonia using renewable energy was one of the recurring themes of the recent Power to Ammonia conference in Rotterdam. Specifically, what cost reductions or market mechanisms would be necessary so that renewable ammonia - produced using electrolytic hydrogen in a Haber-Bosch plant - would be competitive with normal, "brown" ammonia, made from fossil fuels. A number of major industry participants addressed this theme at the conference, including Yara and OCI Nitrogen, but it was the closing speech, from the International Energy Agency (IEA), that provided the key data to demonstrate that, because costs have already come down so far, renewable ammonia is cost-competitive in certain regions today.