All Posts from June 23, 2023

Intrepid Completes Phase One of HB Mine Project; Expects Phase Two Construction by End of Year

Featured, News, Potash, Southern Plains

Intrepid Potash Inc. on June 21 announced the successful completion of Phase One of its HB Injection Pipeline Project at the company’s HB Solar Solution potash mine near Carlsbad, N.M., which involved the installation of a 21-mile pipeline to increase brine injection rates.

The goal of the pipeline is to improve brine grade and maximize brine availability, Intrepid said, both of which are essential for the efficient operation of the HB Solar Solution mine. Capital spending for Phase One totaled approximately $16 million, the company said.

As a result of Phase One completion, Intrepid said it now has proven injection rates at up to 2,000 gallons per minute (GPM), almost triple the average injection rate of approximately 700 GPM over the past five years.

“Our primary focus for 2023 is the successful execution on our growth projects designed to improve our brine grade and availability,” said Bob Jornayvaz, Intrepid CEO and Executive Chairman. “Completing Phase One of the HB Injection Pipeline Project on schedule and within budget is a great first step in increasing our annual potash production, which should significantly improve our unit economics.”

The company also provided an update on Phase Two of the project, which involves the installation of an in-line pigging system to clean the pipeline and prevent scaling to help ensure more consistent flow rates. Intrepid said it continues to work through the permitting process but expects Phase Two construction to begin by the end of the year, with commissioning expected in the first quarter of 2024.

“Due to the nature of the brine injection and evaporation cycle, we expect to see production improvements at HB starting in the fall of 2024,” Jornayvaz said.

Until the completion of Phase Two, Intrepid anticipates operating at average injection rates of approximately 1,100 GPM, which the company said are roughly 55% higher than rates before the start of the project. Following the completion of Phase Two, however, Intrepid expects injection rates to jump to 1,500-2,000 GPM.

Vanguard Starts Construction on Compound Fertilizer Plant in Ontario

Canada, Featured, News, Specialty

Vanguard Crop Nutrition Inc. (VCN), a Canadian producer of specialty fertilizer, confirmed on June 14 that it has begun construction on a compound fertilizer manufacturing facility in Maitland, Ont. The manufacturing site is located near the St. Lawrence Seaway, Highway 401, and mainline rail, and is targeted to open in 2024 with a 25 mt/h production capacity.

“There is no better time than now to build and safeguard Canada’s manufacturing and supply of next-generation crop nutrition solutions.” said VCN CEO Ryan Brophy. “Supply chain disruptions and recent offshore production quality are serious issues for farmers on this side of the Atlantic, and VCN Canada will help correct that. A win-win-win for the producer, the people, and the planet.”

The facility will produce VCN’s flagship compound fertilizer Eleven Superstart for multi-crop application, a product that provides 11 plant nutrients in one low-salt, high density granule designed for seed-placed/in furrow application. The product was previously manufactured in Eastern Europe and imported into Canada and the Americas.

The new plant will also manufacture the company’s Soy7 MAX and Pulse8, which are slated to be launched in 2024 and 2025. VCN said the project will provide local and indirect jobs throughout the construction phase, and in manufacturing, logistics, and distribution once the facility is operational.

VCN is a subsidiary of V6 Agronomy Inc., a Canadian wholesale fertilizer distributing company founded by Brophy in 2012 with distribution warehouses in North Augusta, Ont., and Wilcox, Sask. V6 also operates railyards in both eastern Ontario and southeastern Saskatchewan, and expanded its distribution into northern New York in 2014 (GM Jan. 20, 2014).

VCN said its focus is on “regenerative agriculture” and on-farm climate change mitigation, and its manufacturing process involves mixing mineral and organic components with conventional ingredients to remineralize soils and remove carbon dioxide via enhanced rock weathering.

“It’s an exciting day and time for farmers across Canada and the Americas,” said Brophy. “This is the first step to providing a secure supply of fertilizers developed to improve food security and make tangible in-soil contributions to fighting climate change.”

First Phosphate Commissions Phosphate Concentrate Pilot Plant in Quebec

Canada, Featured, News, Phosphate, Phosphoric Acid

Junior miner First Phosphate Corp., Saguenay, Quebec, on June 19 announced that it has completed the commissioning of its pilot plant to produce phosphate concentrate. The concentrate will be used in the formulation of battery-grade purified phosphoric acid for use in the manufacture of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode active material for the LFP battery industry in North America.

The pilot plant, which the company said uses fully solventless, environmentally friendly extraction methods, is located at the Quebec City facilities of SGS Canada Inc., a multinational company that provides inspection, verification, testing, and certification services.

“The commissioning of the pilot plant is a major milestone for First Phosphate in the processing of battery-grade purified phosphoric acid that will be used in the LFP homologation process with our partners,” said Peter Kent, First Phosphate President.

Following positive bench test results that demonstrated a recovery of 91.4% of phosphate-bearing apatite to a concentrate containing 40.2% P2O5, First Phosphate decided to build the pilot plant to process a large, 15-ton bulk sample that optimizes the company’s metallurgical process for the production of high-grade phosphate concentrate approaching 41% P2O5.

Based on 15 separate crushed rock specimens, the bulk sample tested by SGS assayed 7.6% P2O5 and 6.9% titanium oxide. “SGS is committed to First Phosphate as a trusted partner,” said Dominique Lascelles, Director, Technical Services, at SGS. “The test work to-date has proven positive, and we are happy to have completed this full pilot plant program with First Phosphate.”

The pilot plant has produced over 900 kilograms of apatite concentrate, which were sent to the facilities of Prayon SA in Belgium, Europe’s largest producer of battery-grade purified phosphoric acid (PPA). Prayon and First Phosphate signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in February to collaborate on PPA production (GM March 3, p. 1).

First Phosphate said the battery-grade PPA produced by Prayon will then be sent to company partners for homologation into their LFP cathode active material production processes. The company said the pilot plant also produces marketable recoveries of ilmenite and magnetite.

First Phosphate holds 1,500 square kilometers of total land claims in the Saguenay Region, some 110 kilometers north of the City of Saguenay, which it is actively developing to produce battery grade phosphate at ESG standards and with a low-carbon footprint (GM Oct. 14, 2022).

Uralkali Plans to Restore Potash Output in 2H; Uralchem Expects N Sales to Support Full Production

Ammonia, Featured, News, Potash, Russia, Urea

Russian potash producer Uralkali PJSC is expecting to see a recovery in its potash output in the second half of this year, Uralchem Board Chairman Dmitry Tatyanin said in an interview with Russian news agency Tass at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 14-17.

“The decline in Uralkali’s potash production happened in the first quarter. We expect further steady growth, with volumes returning to capacity levels in the second half of this year,” Tatyanin said, according to the report.

Uralkali’s current potash production capacity is unclear, but according to its website, the company produced 12.3 million mt of KCl in 2021. Russia’s first-quarter potash production in 2023 fell 31% year-over-year, to 1.7 million mt of active ingredient, according to an Interfax report in April, citing the country’s Federal State Statistics Service, Rosstat (GM April 28, p. 31).

Russian company EuroChem Group AG also produces potash, cranking out 2.39 million mt of potassium chloride in 2021 at its Usolskiy Potash operation, south of Berezniki (GM Sept. 8, 2022) and 427,000 mt of potassium chloride at its VolgaKaliy operation in Russia’s southern Volgograd region in 2022, according to company data (GM April 7, p. 26). EuroChem has not published full operational results since 2021.

Meanwhile, Uralchem expects its own nitrogen fertilizer sales this year will enable the company to maintain a 100% production capacity load, according to Tatyanin. He noted, however, that the situation with ammonia will change in 2024 following the launch of the company’s terminal in the Russian Black Sea/Azov Sea port of Taman.

Uralchem last month reaffirmed its plans to commission the new terminal in late 2023 (GM May 26, p. 32). A first stage rated for freight turnover of up to 2 million mt/y of ammonia will be put into operation in late 2023, according to the company. Under a second stage of development, currently scheduled for completion by the end of 2025, the terminal’s transshipment capacity is targeted to grow to 3.5 million mt/y of ammonia and 1.5 million mt/y of urea.

Tatyanin told Tass that the construction of the new terminal could eliminate the problem of the Togliatti-Yuzhny ammonia pipeline being blocked. “The new Black Sea terminal, with a transshipment capacity of 3.5 million mt/y of ammonia, will adequately meet the needs of producers,” he said.

A further expansion of the terminal’s capacity for fertilizer transshipment is possible, according to Tatyanin, who told TASS that Uralchem is “considering several ideas for the development of the Taman terminal.”

The Togliatti-Yuzhny ammonia pipeline, which Russia used to transport ammonia for export to three Black Sea ports, has been shut since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Russia is reported to have sent more than 2 million mt/y of ammonia through the pipeline for export before the shutdown.

Earlier this month, a portion of the pipeline in the Kupiansk district of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region was damaged by explosions (GM June 9, p. 1). Kyiv said Russian missiles were responsible, while Moscow blamed Ukrainian saboteurs.

OCP Plans Green Ammonia Plant in Southern Morocco

Ammonia, Featured, Green Ammonia, Morocco, News

OCP Group SA plans to invest $7 billion to build an ammonia plant in Tarfaya, in southern Morocco, using green hydrogen produced from renewable fuel, Reuters reported on June 20. The plant is slated to produce 200,000 mt/y of ammonia by 2026, increasing to 1 million mt/y by 2027 and 3 million mt/y by 2032, the company told Reuters.

The plant, which would use hydrogen produced from solar and wind powered electrolysis as a raw material to make ammonia, is part of an ambitious strategy that OCP announced in December to invest approximately $13 billion in 2023-2027 to ramp up its transition to carbon neutrality by 2040 and reduce the company’s dependency on ammonia imports (GM Dec. 9, 2022).

Morocco imported a total of 1.88 million mt of ammonia in 2022, according to Trade Data Monitor, up from 1.65 million mt in 2021. Russia was Morocco’s main ammonia supplier before the war in Ukraine, but imports from Russia fell to 254,531 mt in 2022, down from 826,255 mt in 2021.

With the loss of Russian ammonia, Morocco has been forced to cast a wider net. Ammonia imports for January-April this year totaled 444,650 mt, down 37% from the prior year’s 706,139 mt, with more than half supplied by Trinidad. Other exporters of ammonia to Morocco for the first four months of this year included Saudi Arabia, the US, Oman, and Indonesia.

In addition to the green ammonia plant, OCP also plans to invest in desalination powered by renewable energy, both to supply its industrial facilities and to supply adjacent farmland. Its Tarfaya project involves a renewable-energy powered desalination plant with capacity of 60 million cubic meters/y to supply the industrial facilities, OCP confirmed in December.

Morocco’s largest announced green hydrogen and green ammonia project to date is the HEVO Ammonia Morocco project, unveiled in July 2021 (GM July 16, 2021). Based on solar power, the plant is targeted to produce 183,000 mt/y of green ammonia when operations commence, which is expected in 2026.

The International Fertilizer Association – Management Brief

Management Briefs

The International Fertilizer Association (IFA) announced that Tony Will, President and CEO of CF Industries Holdings Inc., has been elected as the new Chair of the association, replacing Svein Tore Holsether, President and CEO of Yara International ASA, who took the post in June 2021 (GM June 18, 2021). Jeanne Johns, outgoing Managing Director and CEO of Incitec Pivot Ltd. (IPL), is the new Vice Chair of IFA, replacing UralChem CEO Dmitry Konyaev.

Will has served as CF’s President and CEO since January 2014. Johns was appointed IPL’s CEO and Managing Director in 2017, but the company announced earlier this month that she was stepping down (GM June 9, p. 26).

“I am honored to serve as Chair of IFA and help advance this vital organization’s mission to promote the efficient and responsible production, distribution, and use of plant nutrients,” Will said. “Our industry is at the forefront of some of the world’s most important challenges, from food security to climate change. I look forward to working with our members and the IFA team to continue our leadership role in addressing these global priorities, collaborating not just within our own industry, but with government and other stakeholders as well.”

Both Will and Johns serve on IFA’s Executive Board, along with Immediate Past Chair Holsether, IFA CEO and Director General Alzbeta Klein, and Raviv Zoller, President and CEO of ICL Group. Ahmed El Hoshy, CEO of OCI Global and Fertiglobe, and Abdulrahman Shamsaddin, CEO of SABIC Agri-Nutrients, are joining the Executive Board as well.

IFA also welcomed five new members to its Board of Directors, including Robert Wilt, CEO of Saudi Arabian Mining Co. (Ma’aden); Maen Nsour, President and CEO of Arab Potash Co. (APC); Julian Palliam, President and CEO of Foskor; Yasser Alabassi, President of Bahrain’s Gulf Petrochemical Industries Co. (GPIC); and Wang Bei, General Manager of CNAMPGC Holding Ltd Co. Members reelected to the Board of Directors include David Delaney, CEO of Itafos Inc., and Suresh Krishnan of Adventz.

Yara International ASA – Management Brief

Management Briefs, Norway

Yara International ASA announced on June 20 that Lars Røsæg, currently Deputy CEO and Executive Vice President of Corporate Development, will leave the company by the end of 2023 to take up a new position as investment partner in the Norwegian firm Salvesen & Thams.

Røsæg has been with Yara since 2018, serving first as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer before taking his current position in June 2021 (GM June 25, 2021).

“I’d like to thank Lars for his strong contributions to Yara’s progress and our close professional collaboration over many years and wish him the best of luck in his new position,” said Svein Tore Holsether, Yara President and CEO.

Flint Hills Resources – Management Brief

Management Briefs

Flint Hills Resources, an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries Inc., announced on June 21 that Rodney Dillon has been named Vice President and Manufacturing Manager at Flint Hill Resources’ Corpus Christi, Texas, refineries. In his new role, Dillon will lead local operations with a workforce of more than 1,000 fulltime employees and contractors.

Dillon has been with Flint Hill Resources since 2005, serving in a variety of leadership roles, including managing several Reliability Centers, Construction Services, Field Services, and Operations Production. He succeeds Brook Vickery, who was recently named Senior Vice President of Operations at Invista, another of Koch’s subsidiaries.

First Phosphate Corp. – Management Brief

Canada, Management Briefs, Phosphate

Junior miner First Phosphate Corp., Saguenay, Quebec, announced on June 12 that Isobel Sheldon has been appointed to the company’s Advisory Board. Sheldon is a 20-year veteran of the lithium ion battery industry, and was awarded an Order of the British Empire for long service to EV battery development.

She currently works with consultancy and advisory firm Oakpolytech Ltd., and has held senior strategy, technical, business, and executive roles with Britishvolt, UK Battery Industrialisation Centre, Cummins Electrified Power, and Johnson Matthey.

“Ms. Sheldon is a great fit for our team, as she is deeply committed to the development and sustainability of the battery industry and has years of experience in the field to guide us with in the next phases of our development,” said John Passalacqua, CEO of First Phosphate. “It is rare to meet individuals with such passion for their profession and, as such, Isobel adds a great splash of dynamism to our team along with her extensive global network of specialists.”

Meristem Crop Performance Group LLC – Management Brief

Eastern Cornbelt, Management Briefs

Crop inputs supplier Meristem Crop Performance Group LLC, Columbus, Ohio, reported on June 15 that Kyle Walden has joined the company as Meristem’s Sales Rep and Dealer Coach in North Dakota. Walden most recently served as Agronomy Manager at Premier Ag Products in Rogers, N.D. Prior to that, he held an ag sales position with ADM in Rogers, N.D.

“Kyle Walden is a service-oriented expert at helping farmers get solid crop production results,” said Mitch Eviston, Meristem Founder and CEO. “Kyle knows his stuff and has a passion for serving farmers. We are excited to gain the value of his experience as we continue to grow our Meristem business in the Dakotas and surrounding states.”

Disclaimer of Warranty
All information has been obtained by Green Markets from sources believed to be reliable. However, because of the possibility of human or mechanical error by our sources, Green Markets or others, Green Markets does not guarantee the accuracy, adequacy, or completeness of any information and is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of such information.

For additional details visit our Terms of Use.