Production Begins at Europe's Largest Urea Unit

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources Europe (Galway, Ireland)--Yara International ASA (OTC:YARIY) (Oslo, Norway) has started up a new 3,500-metric-tonne-per-day urea unit at its fertilizer complex in Sluiskil, Netherlands. The new unit, which took three years to build, is reported to have cost €400 million ($556 million).

ThyssenKrupp AG's (OTC:TYEKF) (Essen, Germany) engineering, procurement and construction contractor, ThyssenKrupp Uhde (Dortmund, Germany), was responsible for the engineering and supply of all equipment and the construction of the plant on a fixed-price, turnkey basis. Commenting on the commissioning of the unit, Lothar Jungemann, a member of the Executive Board of ThyssenKrupp Uhde, said, "With this project we have proved that intelligent technology, environmental protection and economic interests are compatible, even in Europe."

ThyssenKrupp Uhde also performed a retrofit of an older, 1,300-metric-tonne-per-day urea unit at Sluiskil. Together, these two units make Sluiskil Europe's largest producer of urea.

Some of the urea produced by the new plant will be used as an aqueous urea solution to treat diesel exhaust fumes from heavy-duty vehicles. This technology, which is known as AdBlue, reduces NOx emissions and is being sold at service stations under the Yara brand name Air1.

The required feedstocks for the new unit are ammonia and carbon dioxide, which are both produced on-site in Sluiskil. The site has three ammonia plants, four CO2 plants, two nitric acid plants, two urea plants (one prilling and one granulation) and two nitrate granulation plants. Sluiskil has Yara's and Europe's largest installed ammonia and nitrate fertilizer capacities.

Yara also produces urea at sites in Brunsbuttel, Germany; Ferrara, Italy; Le Havre, France; Belle Plaine, Canada; Qafco, Qatar; and Lifeco, Libya.

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