Producing pure nutrients

As the economic pressure on European farmers rises, improving returns becomes a vital necessity.

Optimizing farm inputs is a way to cut costs while controlling returns. One of the most important farming inputs is mineral fertilizer. It originates from various sources throughout the world and can be of variable quality.

Is European production different in terms of quality and environment?

Good fertilizer, good crop

The mechanical quality of fertilizer is key for spreadability, precise application, low environmental impact and high return on investment. In many cases, simply taking a handful of fertilizer gives an initial idea: dust and crushed granules indicate low quality, while uniform size and smooth surface stand for superior spreadability.

Mineral fertilizers should also be pure nutrients, free of additives and pollution; their environmental footprint, both at production and application, should be as low as possible.

Ensuring high quality goes along with continuous investment in people, technology and organization. Europe has the highest production standards in the world, meeting the social, environmental and health requirements of society for today and the future.

How does it work?

In a modern plant, nitrogen fertilizer is produced from natural gas. Through several transformation steps, natural gas (essentially methane) is upgraded with nitrogen from the air to form nitrogen fertilizer. 80% of the gas is used as feedstock for fertilizer while 20% is used for heating the process and producing electricity. A typical fertilizer production process is laid out in figure 1, but not all plants perform all transformation steps.

Based on the two main end products, ammonium nitrate and urea, different fertilizer types are manufactured by mixing with ingredients such as phosphorus and potassium to form NPKs, dolomite to form CAN or by mixing urea and ammonium nitrate solution to make UAN.

Reliable supply

Yara fertilizer plants are located all over Europe, in close vicinity to seaports and rivers to enable efficient transportation: Montoir, Ambes and Le Havre in France, Brunsbuttel and Rostock in Germany, Tertre in Belgium, Sluiskil in The Netherlands, Ravenna in Italy, Porsgrunn and Glonfjord in Norway to name a few examples.

Yara's fertilizer factories run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They only stop once in a while for maintenance work and installation upgrades. Huge storage areas hold sufficient stock to ensure continuous deliveries and compensate for demand variations.

Safety, quality, sustainability

All Yara production plants work according to best available techniques and are certified according to the latest international standards:

  • ISO 9001 (Quality)
  • ISO 14001 (Environment)
  • OHSA 18001 (Health and Safety)

Daily controls ensure constant mechanical and chemical quality. Complete traceability of each individual batch is ensured at all times.