Feeding the world Yara International

FEEDING THE WORLD

Yara International ASA is the world’s leading fertiliser company. Based in Oslo, Yara has factories throughout Europe as well as in Brazil and Canada and sells over 20 million tons of fertiliser every year. Joseph Altham reports on a company with a mission to achieve better yields.

Originally, the reason why Norway became such an important producer of fertiliser was because of the country’s waterfalls. Yara dates back to 1905 and the foundation of Norsk Hydro, a business created to produce fertiliser using the electricity generated from hydropower. Norsk Hydro subsequently became a highly successful producer of aluminium. Finally, in 2004, the fertiliser division of the business, Hydro Agri, was spun off from the rest of Hydro and renamed Yara. Yara today has more than 7300 employees and operates production sites in 17 countries worldwide.

Fertiliser gives agricultural crops the essential nutrients they need for strong, healthy growth. The most important elements contained in fertiliser are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK). However, crops also require other nutrients such as calcium and magnesium. Calcium strengthens cell walls and helps to reduce bruising in fruit, while magnesium assists in photosynthesis. Yara’s main brands of fertiliser include YaraMila, containing a combination of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, and YaraLiva, a range of calcium nitrates that can improve the size, strength and appearance of fruit. Upstream

Yara distinguishes between its upstream and downstream activities. The phosphorus in fertiliser has to be mined. Yara sources much of the phosphate ore (apatite) from its own mine at Siilinjärvi in Finland. The basic ingredients for nitrogen fertiliser are ammonia and urea, and the majority of Yara’s production plants for ammonia and urea are located in Europe. Yara’s single largest site for the production of ammonia is in the Netherlands, at Sluiskil. The Sluiskil site has an annual production capacity of 1.7 million tonnes of ammonia and 900,000 tonnes of

Tessenderlo Group

Tessenderlo Group is the third largest producer of sulphate of potash (SOP) in the world and its factory in Belgium is the largest single unit for the production of SOP using the Mannheim process.

The group offers a full range of SOP grades; standard powder, granular and fully water soluble (SoluPotasse®).

Tessenderlo Group has been supplying SOP for NPK fertilizers produced by Yara for over 10 years.

SOP improves crop yield and quality, making plants more resistant to drought, frost, insects and disease. SOP also improves the crop’s nutritional value, taste and appearance but also its resistance to deterioration during transport and storage, and its suitability for industrial processing. These benefits make SOP the world’s most popular low-chloride potassium fertilizer. SOP also offers the additional benefit of sulphur and has a very low salinity index making it the preferred potash fertilizer in areas at risk from soil salinity. Witt Handel GmbH is a traditional fertiliser trading company with thirty years experience, particularly on the markets in Germany, Scandinavia and Benelux.

Our key products are: • Calcium Ammonium Nitrate 27% N • UAN-Solution 28% N • UREA 46% N, granulated and prilled • Ammonium Sulphate 21% N • PK and NPK formulations • Mono-Ammonium Phosphate 12/52 • Diammonium Phosphate 18/46 • Triple Super Phosphate 46%

Witt Handel GmbH Ballindamm 3 • D 20095 Hamburg Phone • (49)–40–30 96 56 25 Fax Email • (49)–40–33 58 06 • info@witt-handel.com

Novochem Fertilizer Additives: the reliable partner in fertilizer additives for Yara

Fertiliser coatings are a strategic raw material for fertiliser producers. Novochem Fertiliser Additives has been the preferred fertiliser coatings supplier for Yara International ever since early 1990 for the Yara plants in Europe. Besides that a strong co-operation between the 2 companies has existed in the field of R & D between the companies resulting in a ongoing flow of new and improved applications of fertiliser additives.

Novochem Fertilizer Additives is a leading producer of fertiliser additives with a strong focus on quality, reliability and cost efficiency. The state-of-the-art laboratory is focussed on developping the most optimal applications and several succesful inventions have been filed in patents worldwide.

urea. In 2009, Yara began construction of a new plant at Sluiskil, Urea 7, representing an investment of €400 million. Yara has also invested €60 million in its Siilinjärvi mine in order to step up production of phosphate rock and thus make production of NPK fertilisers less reliant on imports.

Ammonia production is an energy-intensive process which needs a lot of natural gas. In a drive to limit production costs, Yara is now choosing to locate more of its production in low-cost gas regions. One such region is Qatar. Here, Yara has a 25 per cent stake in the Qatar Fertiliser Company, Qafco (with the other 75 per cent owned by Industries Qatar). The Qafco-5 expansion project, costing $3.2 billion, involves the construction of two ammonia plants and one urea plant, and is expected to be completed by the end of 2011. A project for another urea plant, Qafco-6, is expected to be completed the following year. Together Qafco-5 and Qafco-6 are set to achieve an increase in production capacity of 1.6 million tonnes of ammonia and 2.6 million tonnes of urea. Downstream

Yara sells to over 150 countries and so plays a truly global role in the agricultural industry. Indeed, Yara regards globalisation as a ‘megatrend’ which needs to be incorporated into its strategic thinking. Another megatrend, the growth in the world’s population, presents a serious challenge. By 2050 world population will reach 9.1 billion people, which will necessitate a 70 per cent increase in food production. However, it will be impossible to meet the world’s need for food simply by bringing more land under cultivation, since land is a finite resource. At the 2011 World Economic Forum in Davos, Yara co-presented the “New Vision for Agriculture” initiative on global food security. The initiative, backed by Yara, along with 16 other global companies, is centred on a 20/20/20 ambition: lowering greenhouse gas emissions and rural poverty by 20 per cent each decade, but increasing food production every decade by 20 per cent. More efficient farming is needed if these objectives are to be realised, and this is where fertiliser can make a vital contribution. Knowledge grows

Yara’s motto is ‘knowledge grows’ and the company is the first to point out that simply dumping more fertiliser onto the soil is unlikely to be the best answer to the problem of the world’s food supply. Instead, the focus must be on encouraging farmers to use fertiliser in more intelligent ways. What counts here is providing crops with just the right quantity of nitrogen for their needs, as well as giving them the best possible balance of other essential nutrients like sulphur and potassium. By helping the farmer to use fertiliser more effectively, Yara can even save him some cash. Yara’s N-Sensor is a fertiliser management tool that the farmer can put on his tractor. As the tractor moves across the field spreading the fertiliser, the farmer can gauge how much nitrogen the crop needs and adjust the fertiliser application rate accordingly. The technology works by measuring the way the crop reflects the light. A study conducted in Germany has shown that with the aid of the N-Sensor a farmer can increase his yield by 6 per cent while at the same time obtaining a 12 per cent reduction in the amount of fertiliser he has to use. n

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