The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office has made a conditional loan guarantee of up to $1.56 billion to Wabash Valley Resources LLC (WVR), toward a total investment of $2.4 billion, to help build a low-carbon ammonia production facility in Indiana.
The project in West Terre Haute is expected to produce 500,000 mt/y of blue ammonia using commercial-scale waste-to-ammonia technology with carbon capture and sequestration to become the world’s first carbon-negative ammonia facility. The project will repurpose an industrial gasifier to utilize petroleum coke while permanently storing carbon dioxide.
The company must satisfy certain legal, technical, environmental, and financial requirements before the DOE can fund the loan guarantee.
“This close to a decade-long development phase has been made possible through the dedicated efforts of the Department of Energy, the building trades unions, and our strategic partners,” said Dan Williams, WVR’s Chief Operating Officer. “WVR is thrilled to be at the forefront of a new industrial era that harmonizes environmental, social, and economic benefits, and we cannot thank our partners enough.”
By producing ammonia domestically, the project is set to benefit food security in the US by helping to alleviate a restricted supply chain in the Eastern Cornbelt, WVR said, and will support the production of low-carbon corn and ethanol while expanding farmer access to low-carbon markets.
It will also have a positive impact on the ammonia-based fertilizer industry, which is a significant contributor to climate change, the company said. Globally, ammonia manufacturing accounts for 1-2% of all CO2 emissions. By producing low-carbon ammonia, WVR said it will contribute to the US’s decarbonization efforts in agriculture.
“Creating
a large new source of anhydrous ammonia in Indiana would be of enormous
benefit to Hoosier farmers, and manufacturing fertilizer with a low carbon
rating is even
more powerful,” said Don Villwock, former President of the Indiana Farm Bureau
and a farmer in Edwardsport, Ind.
The project will redevelop a former coal-fired power plant site near several closed mines, and is expected to create over 1,100 direct and indirect jobs, including at least 500 union construction jobs, in an area affected by the decline of coal-related industries.
Plans for the project date back to 2016 (GM May 20, 2016) when Phibro LLC, Stamford, Conn., announced that its affiliate, Philipp Brothers Fertilizer, together with a group of investors, had acquired SG Solutions’ Gasification Plant. The US EPA recently issued permits to allow Wabash Carbon Service LLC to construct two wells for CO2 storage in Vermillion and Vigo Counties (GM Feb. 2, p. 1).