Coffeyville, Kan.-CVR Energy Inc. on Nov. 16 announced that its subsidiary, Coffeyville Resources Nitrogen Fertilizers LLC, has restarted its UAN plant. The plant had been taken out of service Sept. 30 after a rupture in a high-pressure vessel. Because of the rupture, a planned biannual turnaround for the entire plant was moved up by a few days. Since completion of the turnaround on Oct. 29, the company had been producing and selling only anhydrous ammonia fertilizer pending the resumption of UAN production.

Wichita, Kan.-Koch Fertilizer LLC has announced that it will market Nitamin® plant nutrition products for Georgia-Pacific Chemicals LLC. Koch Industries Inc. owns both Koch Fertilizer and Georgia-Pacific. Under the proposed agreement, a new subsidiary of Koch Fertilizer, Koch Agronomic Services LLC, will market the Nitamin and Nitamin Nfusion^® lines of slow-release foliar- and soil-applied nitrogen. Georgia-Pacific will continue to manufacture the products and will continue to provide technical support, research, and development for the product line. Tom Snipes, currently plant nutrition business manager for Georgia-Pacific Chemicals, will become the new business manager for Nitamin and Nitamin Nfusion products at Koch Agronomic Services. He will continue to coordinate sales of the Nitamin product line. “Koch Fertilizer’s capabilities make this a tremendous opportunity to extend the reach of Nitamin brand fertilizers to more markets in the U.S. and Canada,” Snipes said. “We plan to capitalize on the agronomic services platform to bring current and future advanced crop production technologies and enhanced value to our customers.”

Saskatoon-Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. on Nov. 16 announced that its board of directors has approved the commencement of a share repurchase program authorizing up to US$2 billion in repurchases of PotashCorp’s outstanding common shares over a one-year period through a normal course issuer bid. Based on the closing price of the common shares of PotashCorp on the New York Stock Exchange on November 15, 2010, PotashCorp could repurchase approximately 14.57 million common shares, or approximately 4.9 percent of the “public float” of common shares under the program. Common shares repurchased under the program will be cancelled. As at Nov. 15, 2010, the company had 297,848,379 common shares outstanding; the public float was 296,721,059 common shares.

Sugar Land, Texas-CVR Energy Inc. on Nov. 18 announced the pricing of a registered underwritten secondary public offering of 18 million shares of CVR Energy’s common stock by certain of its stockholders at a public offering price of $10.75 per share. No shares were sold by the company, and it will not receive any proceeds from the offering. The selling shareholders include affiliates of Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Kelso & Co. LP, who will own approximately 19 percent and 24 percent of CVR’s outstanding common stock, respectively, after the offering. CVR’s CEO Jack Lipinski is also selling 70,000 shares of common stock in the offering for personal tax planning purposes. The size of the offering was increased from a previously announced 15 million shares, with the additional 3 million being sold by Goldman and Kelso.

Tokyo-Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (MHI) and Sojitz Corp. of Japan, jointly with China National Chemical Engineering Corporation (CNCEC), have received an order from joint stock company Ammoni of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation, for a project to construct a large-scale urea fertilizer plant capable of producing ammonia and methanol concurrently. The contract, which will exceed US$1 billion in total, was officially signed on Nov. 13. The project will be the first large-scale fertilizer plant construction project in Russia in 20 years. The new fertilizer plant will be built in Tatarstan at Mendeleevsk, approximately 1,000 kilometers east of Moscow. It will be one of the world’s largest plants capable of concurrently producing ammonia and methanol from natural gas. The plant will have a capacity to produce 2,050 mt/d of ammonia, or 1,382 mt/d ammonia and 668 mt/d of methanol in the case of concurrent production. It will adopt process technologies from Haldor Topsoe A/S of Denmark, Saipem S.p.A. of Italy, and Uhde Fertilizer Technology B.V. of the Netherlands. The plant is slated to go on-stream in 2015. The Japanese firms said the order contract calls for plant engineering, procurement and construction (EPC), which is rare among contracts involving Russian projects. MHI, as leader of the consortium, will be responsible for basic and detailed design work, equipment procurement, and dispatch of technical advisors for installation and test operation. Sojitz will handle coordination between related parties and transport within Russia, leveraging its business experiences and track records in Russia. CNCEC will take charge of construction work. Ammoni is a government-affiliated company jointly established by the Tatarstan government and Russia’s Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (vnesheconombank:VEB) in 2006. CNCEC is a major Chinese construction and engineering firm directly controlled by the State Council of China; the company has design and construction subsidiaries.

Ogden, Utah-Great Salt Lake Mineral’s (GLSM) plan to reduce the amount of water needed to extract sulfate of potash from the Great Salt Lake and at the same time make the workings more environmentally friendly (GM Nov. 15, p. 12) won’t delay the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers environment impact analysis on the company’s expansion plans. “We’re still in the very preliminary stages of assessing the information,” Jason Gipson, chief of the Corps’ Utah/Nevada regulatory branch, told Green Markets. “It won’t delay it at all. It’s just additional information we’re inserting now.” Gipson said he understands that GSLM’s new technology involves putting a concrete or bentonite wall down the center of the diking system, which will keep water from seeping back into the lake. Bentonite is a chemically processed clay that is readily available in Utah. “This will reduce the leakage rates of the existing dikes and reduce the water loss, which will reduce the amounts of water being used and retain product and increase their efficiency,” Gipson explained. He said it could be a double benefit in reducing the size of the ponds because of the higher efficiency, which creates more product while taking up that much less lake area.

Jefferson City, Mo.-A comprehensive analysis by state investigators of sludge used as fertilizer on farm fields from a northwest Missouri tanner has found no health threat to farmers working the fields or to residents living nearby, according to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reached much the same conclusion earlier from a cooperative investigation undertaken because a limited number of farm soil samples showed levels of hexavalent chromium. Tannery wastewater sludge had been applied as a fertilizer to some farm fields in a four-county area for 26 years, investigators pointed out, and both agencies undertook the sample program and reviews after concerns arose in 2009 and were punctuated by a number of court suits. One of the latest was filed on behalf of 24 landowners alleging that they were misled about the safety of the sludge from Prime Tanning, which is now owned by National Beef Leathers. Other suits have been filed by residents claiming the fertilizer from the tanner is the cause of brain tumors and other cancers. In 2009 and 2010, the Missouri DNR collected nearly 600 soil and water samples from northwest Missouri farm fields, residential yards, and drinking water wells in Andrew, Buchanan, Clinton, and DeKalb Counties to determine whether hexavalent chromium levels increased in the soil and water following the tannery sludge application. However, none of the samples exceeded the health-based screening level of 86 parts per million set by EPA and the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. The highest level detected in the fields was 5 parts per million, well below the threshold of concern.

Tampa-Yara International ASA, the leading diesel emissions fuel producer in the world, reports that it has achieved the 250 million gallons sales mark this month. Its brand for DEF, Air1^®, is now present in over 50 countries, serving thousands of customers across 5 continents. The growth of the Air1^® total service solution is driven by evolving environmental emission regulations first introduced in Europe in 2006, which were followed by the more stringent North American emission levels set forth by the EPA 2010 Clean Air Act. Yara, being a pioneer, participated in setting the DEF production quality standards that are now established in the U.S. and Canada and the rest of the world. “We have helped customers get started with DEF around the world,” said Rolf Isberg, Head of Air1®. “Not only do we bring the right quality solution, but also we are able to answer all the questions customers have when they get their first SCR trucks. We have the expertise it takes to smoothly assist fleets needing this product.” Used in conjunction with SCR engine technology, DEF chemically adjusts harmful NOx emissions, releasing harmless nitrogen and steam into the atmosphere instead.

Des Moines, Iowa-The Iowa Corn Growers Association in a guest column Oct. 26 in the Des Moines Register strongly objected to the state’s agriculture being portrayed by the newspaper and Gov. Chet Culver as waterway polluters. On the contrary, insisted Dean Taylor, president of the association, Iowa farmers have made measurable progress in conservation and water quality, drastically reducing over the past 25 years the per-bushel use of nitrogen and phosphorus by as much as 50 percent since 1980. “The (Register) editorial said farmers should consider a rate of 1.2 pounds per bushel. But the fact is, in every year since 1996, Iowa’s fertilizer application rate has been less than 1.1 pounds per bushel. The most recent year’s data shows we are now down to 0.97,” Taylor emphasized in his response. He underscored how these improvements have been achieved through voluntary programs that have reduced sediment reaching Iowa’s waters by 130,947 tons per year and phosphorus by 202,312 pounds per year; reduced land use and energy needed to produce a bushel of corn by 37 percent while increasing land yields by 31.3 bushels per acre; enrolled nearly 600,000 acres in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, which is more than any other state in the nation; and voluntarily restored more than 250,000 acres of wetlands. Between 1996 and 2006, he added, levels of 11 herbicides and insecticides were found by USGS to be on the decline in Iowa and other Corn Belt waterways. “And, perhaps more important,” Taylor wrote, “Iowa farmers through their corn check-off have invested several million dollars in research regarding nitrogen use efficiency. Over the past eight years, check-off funded researchers have been working through biotechnology to insert a gene into the corn plant that will require at least 20 percent less nitrogen per bushel.”