Haldor Topsøe licensing technology to Russia’s largest ammonia plant  

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) and Sojitz Corp. of Japan have received an order from PhosAgro-Cherepovets for a project to construct the largest ammonia plant in the Russian Federation. The estimated investment cost of the project is$785 million and the plant is scheduled to begin operations in 2017. The ammonia plant will be built in the city of Cherepovets approximately 400 km north of Moscow. It will have a production capacity of 2,200 metric tons per day of ammonia using natural gas as feedstock, and will adopt the highly energy efficient ammonia process technology of Haldor Topsøe A/S. (Lyngby, Denmark; www.topsoe.com) Besides the engineering design and license, the delivery from Topsøe also includes proprietary hardware and catalysts. The award of this contract marks the continued success of MHI’s and Topsøe’s collaboration in the Russian market, where another project is currently under construction. Demand for ammonia-based fertilizers is expected to rise steadily worldwide amid rising food production in response to global population growth. In Russia, which is one of the world’s leading producers of natural gas, interest in fertilizer production is increasing as the country seeks…