CF

Munkul

Member
It takes over 600kg (KILOS, mind, that's near 1000 m3) of natural gas to produce 1 ton of anhydrous ammonia.
That's 9500 kwh of gas at industrial large volume prices equalling £380/ton last december. ONS data shows the price almost doubled from 2.4p/kwh in july-sept, to 4.15p/kwh in oct-dec.

AND...
It then takes a load more gas for heating, steam etc to form into other products. Use ammonia to make nitric acid and then to make AN.
THEN add in P and K etc (which have their own energy intensive processes), and granulate it using steam generated from gas boilers.
I'd put a SWAG on the total energy price per ton of granulated NPK to be around £500+. That's before any other raw materials or running costs.... That's literally just the cost of the gas involved.

Is it any surprise that they're struggling to turn a profit?

Looking back I'm surprised we didn't all see this coming a mile off. Every single European country apart from France has been installing gas turbines like they're going out of fashion over the last 10 years... supply and demand.... Every industry that has always needed gas for heating/chemicals now has to compete with electricity generation for a slice of the same size pie...
 
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Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
Brother said yesterday there's talk of CF mothballing it's uk plants. Worrying if true.
CF never did reopen its Ince plant. So only Billingham was reopened last September.

CF is USA owned and the price of Gas in North America is miles cheaper than it is in Europe.
Without a pipeline, it is expensive to compress and transport as a liquid.
So not only would CF stuff us by not only stopping making AN and CO2, but quite happily carry on production in the USA.
 
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beardface

Member
Location
East Yorkshire
CF never did reopen its Ince plant. So only Billingham was reopened last September.

CF is USA owned and the price of Gas in North America is miles cheaper than it is in Europe.
Without a pipeline, it is expensive to compress and transport as a liquid.
So not only would CF stuff us by not only stopping making AN and CO2, but quite happily carry on production in the USA.

I think that possibly the reality. Large corporation realising there's no money in the job over here. Bit like p n o with ferries. If the jobs not paying hard choices have to be made. After all there not charities.
 

Farma Parma

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Northumberlandia
Been watching that Peter Zeihan video that someone posted the other day (loads of fascinating stuff in there) and I was shocked at the huge differences in gas prices between the US and Europe. I find myself wondering why we aren’t buying huge quantities of fert from the US?
If what that fellow is saying about allsorts thats ongoing in the world atm were doomed !! interesting guy tho
 

DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
If what that fellow is saying about allsorts thats ongoing in the world atm were doomed !! interesting guy tho
Yeah, I’ve no idea how correct he is on some of the points he was making but there’s some serious amount of poo heading towards the fan worldwide. Did you watch the full version?
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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    Votes: 79 42.2%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 65 34.8%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.0%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

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

    Votes: 7 3.7%

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

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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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