Turkey’s Yıldırım Holding AS is targeting Croatia’s only fertilizer producer, Petrokemija d.d., to restart production in the first quarter of 2023, and will step up its efforts to achieve this once it has completed the acquisition of the Croatian company.
Kutina-based Petrokemija halted production eight months ago amid rising natural gas costs, having only resumed output on Jan. 21 after a seven-week stoppage due to a technical fault (GM Jan. 21, p. 28; Dec. 3, 2021).
Yıldırım last month signed an agreement with Petrokemija’s biggest shareholder, Croatian oil and gas group ING d.d. and Croatian gas company Prvo Plinarsko Društvo (PPD) to acquire Terra Mineralna Gnojiva company (TMG), which holds a 54.517% stake in the fertilizer company (GM Nov. 18, p. 31).
Yıldırım wants to make Petrokemija an important producer of fertilizers in Europe and a bigger exporter, according to a bne IntelliNews report, citing Yildirim Group President and CEO, Robert Yuksel Yildirim, speaking with Croatia’s public broadcaster HRT.
Achieving this requires an increase in production capacity and investment, the CEO said.
Yıldırım plans to produce fertilizers at Petrokemija at the company’s full capacity of 1 million mt/y, according to the report.
Petrokemija current nameplate capacity for nitrogen fertilizers includes 0.45 million mt/y of ammonia, 0.31 million mt/y of ammonium nitrate, 0.5 million mt/y of urea, and 0.2 million mt/y of UAN, according to Green Markets database.
Petrokemija selected exports (mt)
| Product | 2020 | 2021 |
| Urea | 359,073 | 299,782 |
| UAN | 27,764 | 23,683 |
| AN | 69,583 | 3,466 |
Source: Trade Data Monitor
Austria, Italy, Hungary, Slovenia, Serbia, Romania, Slovenia, and Portugal were the biggest offtakers of Petrokemija urea in 2020 and 2021, while most of the AN went to Bosnia and Herzegovina and to Serbia and other neighboring countries, according to Trade Data Monitor. Almost all of the UAN went to Hungary, with small volumes going to Italy.
ING is 49.08% owned by Hungarian oil and gas company MOL, while the Croatian government owns 44.84%. PPD is wholly-owned by Croatian private company Energia Naturalis D.O.O. (ENNA).