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CHEMOPROJECT NITROGEN a.s. provides planning, engineering and construction services as well as production unit commissioning and investment implementation management of nitrogen-based industrial technologies. Last year a majority stake in the company was taken by Swiss company Casale Holding, catapulting CHEMOPROJECT NITROGEN into a leading position in its field. What does this mean in real terms for the Czech facility? We asked sales director Petr Miler.

Over the past 20 years CHEMOPROJECT NITROGEN’s activities have focused on engineering work and deliveries, particularly in manufacturing technology for nitrogenous fertilisers and related technologies, specifically nitric acid, ammonium nitrate, liquid and granulated urea and aniline. This experience and tradition have paid off in its project solutions, which minimise the space requirements of buildings, including the length of pipework and cable routes in line with optimum construction designs for layout and the deployment of technology. All of this contributes to solutions acceptable to the investor, where there is a need to seek a compromise between the value of investment on the one hand, and requirements for capacity and operability of production units as well as quality on the other. The current company’s predecessor, Chemoprojekt, was established in 1950. In 1992 it became a joint-stock company, which was purchased by Safina in 2002. CHEMOPROJECT NITROGEN was established in 2010, the culmination of a long-term growth trend.

Strategic link-up

2014 marked a significant milestone for the new company’s development, when the Swiss group Casale Holding purchased 60 per cent of its shares. Casale Holding is the owner of Casale SA, a global leader in the development and sales of technologies for ammonia, methanol, urea, melamine and synthetic gas processes. In the words of the company’s management, the agreement with Casale Holding represents a synergy between research, process licence provision, basic engineering and implementation of Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) projects. For CHEMOPROJECT NITROGEN this connection opens up a route to new markets, further strengthening its global standing.

“This is a link-up with a company which has patents and licences and, in addition to this, develops its own proprietary equipment that is supplied under licence. Casale is a company with a long tradition in engineering and developing its technologies and proprietary equipment for the fertiliser and methanol industries. It sought a solid partner with whom it could provide larger-scale projects in the areas of EP and EPC, and it has found such a partner in CHEMOPROJECT NITROGEN,” Petr Miller explains.

He adds that in 2014 Casale succeeded in buying from the Austrian company Borealis the technologies for making and converting nitrates and phosphates, a significant step in terms of further development. “This puts us in the unique position of being able to supply the entire range of manufacturing plant technologies for any kind of fertiliser, including ammonia, nitric acid, urea, nitrates, phosphate and complex fertiliser, as well as plant technologies for methanol and melamine. We are the only group that has this kind of scope, which of course significantly strengthens our position on global markets,” he emphasises. He adds that this link-up has not had any negative impact on the organisation’s structure or on employee numbers.

International success

Over the past five years the core activity of CHEMOPROJECT NITROGEN has been the construction of nitric acid production units. This is not just for new plants, but also for upgrades to existing production facilities and new investment in improved efficiency and productivity.

The company’s successes in the international field are illustrated by recently signed contracts – in 2013, for example, it signed a CZK 450 million contract to modernise a urea manufacturing plant for the

Slovak company Duslo Šaľa, part of the Agrofert Group. Another important order is for the modernisation of the urea plant owned by Azomures, the largest manufacturer of fertilisers in Romania, at a cost of two billion crowns. Similarly, as the only sub-contractor to the Italian Maire Tecnimont Group, CHEMOPROJECT NITROGEN provides the OSBL engineering design of two ammonia production plants in Russia. The plant is in the city of Kingisepp, located 137km to the west of St Petersburg, whilst another is based in Nevinnomyssk in south-west Russia.

A favourable outlook

As the EP Contractor to Russian Eurochem, CHEMOPROJECT NITROGEN is currently participating in the installation of an 1800 t/d ammonium nitrate production unit and 600 t/d granulated urea+ammonium sulphate unit for NAK Azot, Novomoskovsk. It is also involved in the engineering and supply of a 1500 t/d granulated urea production unit for FosAgro, Cerepovec. The total value of these projects will exceed CZK 3 billion.

The latest success for the company was at the beginning of this year, when it won another major contract with a Norwegian customer to build a nitric acid plant in Köping in Sweden. This prestigious contract was won in the face of strong international competition. This is now the tenth nitric acid plant to be built by CHEMOPROJECT NITROGEN over the past ten years. The client for the order is the Norwegian concern Yara, the world’s largest producer of nitrogenous fertilisers and ammonia.

The company’s long-term relationships with its suppliers and partners have played a major role in enabling it to maintain its strong market position throughout the world. These include Oschatz GmbH, Arvos GmbH, MAN-Turbo Diesel, Hitachi, ROTEX, Yokogawa, Emerson, ZVU Stojirny, Sulzer, Armatury Group, Renetra and many others besides.

“At the moment our most important markets are those in central Europe, including Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Romania, as well as the Russian Federation. As a result of the link-up with Casale our activities will expand significantly to all countries which have fertiliser manufacturing capabilities. Principally, this means Turkey, India, Indonesia, USA, Middle East and Australia. The demand for fertiliser production continues to grow, so I take a relatively optimistic view of our future,” Petr Miler concludes. n