Romania’s biggest fertilizer producer, Azomureş SA, said on March 28 it could resume production in “the first part of April” if the European Commission (E.C.) this week grants a financial aid package designed to benefit European energy-intensive fertilizer companies.
Under the Commission’s economic support package, energy-intensive fertilizer producers can benefit from up to €50 million (approximately $55.7 million at current exchange rates). The support is intended to balance the costs of energy, especially natural gas for fertilizer producers.
For Targu Mureș-based Azomureş, this aid would cover the difference between the purchase price of natural gas and the cost of production of fertilizers, the company said in a March 28 statement.
“The market price of gas is beyond the gas price equalling to world market fertilizer prices,” the company said.
The EC is expected to make an announcement this week on the granting of the European aid to energy-intensive fertilizer producers. The aid comes amid concern by the Commission about availability of fertilizers to European farmers given that fertilizers from Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine are no longer available.
If the aid package is granted this week, Azomureş said it plans to start up half of its production installations in the first part of April, while the start-up of its other installations is scheduled for May.
It said this start-up schedule and the change at fair price for natural gas would allow for the production of 600,000 mt of fertilizers. The company did not say over what time period this production target would be achieved, but said this output would cover part of the fertilization needs of Romanian farmers in the autumn agricultural campaign “essential for next year’s crops.”
However, Azomureş added that the exact restart date of production and the volume of output is subject to availability of natural gas on the Romanian market.
The producer temporarily stopped fertilizer production on Dec. 17 last year due to the “very high prices” for energy, natural gas, and electricity, saying “the resulting fertilizer prices based on the prevailing energy costs would not be affordable to distributors and farmers” (GM Dec.17, 2021; Dec. 10, 2021).
Azomureş has production capacity for around 1.8 million mt/y of fertilizers, according to Swiss Group Ameropa’s website. Ameropa, via a subsidiary, has owned Azomureş since 2012.
Azomureş puts its annual production under normal operating conditions at 1.6 million mt of fertilizers. It produces granular and prilled ammonium nitrate, granular CAN, granular urea and NPKs, and NPs, and provides about 75 percent of the fertilizers used on Romanian farms, according to the company.