Top ammonia producer joins shipping decarbonisation centre

US-based ammonia producer CF Industries has partnered with the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping and will share its experience in safe production, storage, transport and trading of ammonia.

PHOTO: The Donaldsonville Complex in southeastern Louisiana, US, is the CF Industries' largest ammonia production plant with capacity to produce around 8 million mt/year of nitrogen products. CF Industries

CF Industries is the world's biggest ammonia producer, saying it normally produces around 9.5-10 million mt/year. This ammonia is mostly supplied as fertilizers for agriculture, and other industrial users.

Major ammonia producers like CF Industries and Norway's Yara have increasingly been looking towards shipping as a market with great potential for future low- and zero-carbon ammonia consumption.

Ammonia is typically produced by combining grey hydrogen with nitrogen captured from atmospheric air through the well-known Haber-Bosch process. About 95% of the hydrogen produced in the world today is so-called "grey", which means it is produced from steam reforming of carbon-containing natural gas, according to estimates by the US Department of Energy.

CF Industries has been using steam reforming of natural gas and the Haber-Bosch process to produce ammonia "for decades", and is now looking to lower its carbon footprint by producing ammonia using blue and green hydrogen.

Hydrogen can be zero-carbon through carbon capture and storage (CCS), also known as blue hydrogen. Green hydrogen is produced with electrolysis using renewable electricity sources like wind and solar.

CF Industries says it plans to produce 2 million mt/year of waht it calls "low-carbon" ammonia by 2024. One of the ways it will do this is by installing a 20 MW electrolyser to produce green hydrogen and ammonia at its Donaldsonville Complex in Louisiana.

“We believe ammonia has an important role to play in the world’s transition to clean energy and is a particularly promising approach for the maritime industry,” says CF Industries Holdings’ chief executive Tony Will.

Mærsk Mc-Kinney says CF Industries’ ammonia production capacity could boost maritime demand for ammonia as a fuel future.

Earlier this year, Mærsk Mc-Kinney announced partnerships with port authorities in Rotterdam, Hamburg, Gdynia, Roenne and Tallinn to establish a European Green Corridor Network.