CF Fertilisers

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
As of 10pm this evening 89% of the electric in the UK is being produced by conventional means, nuclear, gas & coal either here or imported, so much for the eco pipe dream of always relying on green energy providers! Time to wake up to the real world.
Too right. I did a few back of envelope calcs and worked out i'd need 40 12 volts lead acid batteries to give me the same power output as a grey fergy and they'd last about 2 hours. Can't see electrical power making inroads into agricultural machinery any time soon. We are going to need internal combustion engines in farming and haulage for years to come. Hopefully we can produce enough renewable veg oils and ethanol to keep them going. Better idea than electricity.
 

Steevo

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
So have these CF factories in the UK already stopped production? It was only announced end of last week and now the world appears to have melted down and ground to a halt!

Talk of issues with food in 10 days time….seems rather quick to me!
 

Steevo

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
Also makes you wonder how one company has become big enough to bring the country to a halt….

Plenty of talk on here previously of how AN was a rollover from the munitions factories in the war….seems we as a country can’t do without them today either!

Does urea production create CO2 also?
 
Also makes you wonder how one company has become big enough to bring the country to a halt….

Plenty of talk on here previously of how AN was a rollover from the munitions factories in the war….seems we as a country can’t do without them today either!

Does urea production create CO2 also?
It's not that ' one company has become big enough' - CF in the UK ultimately came about through the original sale of the 2 ICI fertiliser plants at Billingham & Severnside to Terra from the US (Who shut down Severnside) and then the take-over by Norwegian co Yara of Kemira who owned the Ince plant and which entered into a joint ownership with CF who then acquired 100% of the 2 production sites; There has been a complete lack of recognition by our Government of the widespread strategic importance of the 2 privately owned production facilities, not only around them producing Ammonium Nitrate but also crucially, Co2 - which as was made very apparent only a few years ago, has major widespread implications should shortages occur. - Welcome to Global free-market Britain.
 

Steevo

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
It’s one company today.
They have (been allowed to) become big enough that their decisions can shut the country down.

Until they made that decision to stop last week, nobody seemed aware of this potential “threat”.

How do countries that don’t have fertiliser factories source their required CO2?

I can’t quite make head or tail out of all this…
 

Top Tip.

Member
Location
highland
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Taken from FB can anyone verify it?
 

PSQ

Member
Arable Farmer
It's not that ' one company has become big enough' - CF in the UK ultimately came about through the original sale of the 2 ICI fertiliser plants at Billingham & Severnside to Terra from the US (Who shut down Severnside) and then the take-over by Norwegian co Yara of Kemira who owned the Ince plant and which entered into a joint ownership with CF who then acquired 100% of the 2 production sites; There has been a complete lack of recognition by our Government of the widespread strategic importance of the 2 privately owned production facilities, not only around them producing Ammonium Nitrate but also crucially, Co2 - which as was made very apparent only a few years ago, has major widespread implications should shortages occur. - Welcome to Global free-market Britain.

Time for government to FORCE a demerger of the ownership of the UK production facilities. The Monopolies and Mergers Commission failed to understand the importance of allowing the merger in the first place, time to make good on that horrendous mistake now.
 
It’s one company today.
They have (been allowed to) become big enough that their decisions can shut the country down.

Until they made that decision to stop last week, nobody seemed aware of this potential “threat”.
They have only become so big because there is no other competition in terms of other AN manufacturers in the UK- Norsk Hydro (Yara) shut down their AN factory at Immingham years ago and the huge cost and likely planning restrictions on any would be new AN factory being built in the UK means there won't be competition to dilute their current position; If the fact they produce so vital a commodity that it's deemed to be in the UK national interest to our Government then they should become stakeholders on have a direct say in how it is controlled but that just won't happen- plus with the green agenda, AN is going to become ever more undesirable so if say 1 of the 2 factories gets closed for pure commercial reasons, what happens to those customers currently buying all the CO2 that it used to produce as a by-product?
In the short term the Government should consider providing an immediate subsidy to CF to cover the gap between the high gas price and the commercial AN value to enable AN and effectively Co2 production to resume.
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
It’s one company today.
They have (been allowed to) become big enough that their decisions can shut the country down.

Until they made that decision to stop last week, nobody seemed aware of this potential “threat”.

How do countries that don’t have fertiliser factories source their required CO2?

I can’t quite make head or tail out of all this…

Because we are in a world market; AN is not a big thing in the world; imports are easily available from other countries.

Except, that's all gone to hell in a handcart.
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
So have these CF factories in the UK already stopped production? It was only announced end of last week and now the world appears to have melted down and ground to a halt!

Talk of issues with food in 10 days time….seems rather quick to me!
Its called just in time production, it is how the worlds manufacturers operate today
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 78 42.9%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.6%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.5%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 5 2.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,286
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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