Yara International ASA on June 11 announced that it has approved expansion projects at the company’s Belle Plaine facility in Saskatchewan and its Porsgrunn facility in Norway. Yara said the expansions will add 1.3 million mt of urea at Belle Plaine and 300 kilotons of NPK at Porsgrunn.
“I am delighted to confirm these highly value-creating projects for Yara,” said Jørgen Ole Haslestad, president and CEO of Yara. “Taking advantage of the excellent location of our existing Belle Plaine facility in Canada, we will increase our presence and scale in the North American market by more than doubling our capacity at the site. The Porsgrunn expansion marks an important step in our value-added fertilizer growth plans, driven by increasing demand for high-quality NPK fertilizer for cash crop markets outside Europe.”
The Belle Plaine expansion, first announced by Yara back in February (GM Feb. 13, p. 1), will comprise an integrated world scale ammonia and urea line. Part of the urea produced will be with sulfur, which Yara said will meet the increasing demand from the canola crop segment in the Northern Plains region.
The Belle Plaine project is approved for a fast-track process, Yara said, with expected start-up in the second half of 2016. The final decision to implement the project is subject to an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract, and agreements with Saskatchewan authorities related to utilities and other key terms of the project.
At present, the site has one ammonia plant, one nitric acid plant, and one urea granulation plant. Belle Plaine capacity currently stands at 1 million mt/y urea, 700,000 mt/y ammonia, and 200,000 mt/y UAN, with most of the ammonia used in the production of UAN and granular urea. Total annual production capacity at the plant is 1.1 million mt of finished product.
The new plant will have two granulation units that will produce an additional 1.3 million mt of urea and urea plus sulfur per year, bringing the combined production capacity at Belle Plaine to 2.4 million mt/y. A company spokesman told Green Markets that Yara currently markets urea plus sulfur in Europe, and felt it would also be a good fit for Western Canada and the upper Midwest.
The new facility will be located next to the existing plant on Yara’s 660-acre Belle Plaine site. Although termed an expansion, the upgrade at Belle Plaine will in fact be an entirely new train, with its own urea and ammonia plants and granulation units, and its own natural gas lines, power, and water supplies. A company source stressed that there will be synergies, but the two plants will run independently of each other. If one goes down, he told Green Markets, the other will stay up.
Plant Manager Michael Schlaug told the local press that the existing plant, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary of operation this October, has reached its maximum capacity. “The existing ammonia-urea plant has been expanded and upgraded two to three times,” Schlaug was quoted as saying. “These units are basically maxed out.”
Pending the results of the EPC process and regulatory approvals, Yara plans to begin construction on the Belle Plaine expansion in 2013, with completion slated for 2016.
No projected costs for the project were divulged, but sources noted that, based on the C$1.6 billion price Yara paid for Saskferco in 2008, a total cost of more than $1 billion is likely for a world class ammonia plant.
The construction phase will require a minimum of 200 workers per day, equaling some 2-3 million man-hours, and a minimum of 50 permanent employees will be added once the facility is finished and operating.
In Porsgrunn, Yara will invest approximately NOK 300 million to increase NPK capacity by 300 kilotons. The project will be implemented with a gradual step-up in capacity from 2012 to com