Norway’s Yara, one of the world’s largest fertilizer makers, says it will halt output at its Belgian unit as part of a wider European reduction plan linked to soaring gas prices.
Fertilizers require large amounts of energy to be produced. The surge in gas prices has prompted several manufacturers, including Yara, to cut production.
Yara said in August it intends to cut ammonia production by 65 per cent and ammonium nitrate, used in agriculture as a fertilizer, by 35 per cent. It had not given details per site.
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Annual production capacity at its Belgian site of Tertre, near the French border, is 400,000 tonnes of ammonia, 950,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizers and 800,000 tonnes of nitric acid, the company said.
The halt will entail a reduction of 10 per cent in ammonium nitrate supply on the French market, which will be mostly compensated by its Montoir-de-Bretagne unit in western France, Yara France chair Nicolas Broutin told reporters.
