Yara International ASA, Oslo, said this week that most of its idled ammonia production is back up or is in the process of returning to production.
“Following our European curtailments earlier this autumn, most of our ammonia production, including in the Netherlands, is now back on stream or preparing to start up,” the company told Green Markets on Nov. 30.
“Yara’s global production footprint gives it the flexibility to curtail temporarily unprofitable ammonia production in Europe and replace this with sourcing from our global production and trade system, enabling us to continue supplying customers. We continue to monitor the situation going forward,” the company said. The company noted that fertilizer prices have increased since it took its plants down.
Yara, along with CF Industries Holding Inc., Deerfield, Ill., jolted the nitrogen markets in September (GM Sept. 17, p. 1) when they announced that soaring natural gas prices in Europe were causing them to idle plants in the U.K. and Europe. At the time, Yara estimated that some 40 percent of its European ammonia production capacity was coming offline. CF has since brought one of its two U.K. plants back up with the help of both the government and higher CO2 prices, and has indicated that part of its second U.K. plant may soon come back up (GM Nov. 5, p. 32).
Yara CEO Svein Tore Holsether has been particularly outspoken on the impact of fertilizer shortages on crop yields and food production.
“It’s impacting food prices all over the world and it hits the wallets of many people,” he recently told BBC Today. “But for some people, especially in the developing world, this is not only a question about the wallet, but it’s a question of life or death.”
He called for support of the World Food Program, and noted that last year Yara donated some 40,000 mt of fertilizer to small-hold farms in East Africa (GM June 5, 2020).