CF Fertilisers UK today confirmed that it is proposing to permanently close its Billingham ammonia plant, which was a large industrial consumer of gas until last year.
CF plans to continue producing ammonium nitrate and nitric acid at the Billingham site using imported ammonia. The company has been relying on imported ammonia at the facility for the past 10 months after ammonia production halted in September 2022. The plant consumed an average of 1.13mn m³/d of gas to produce ammonia in the first eight months of last year, but consumption has been minimal since then (see consumption graph).
CF said it does not expect ammonia production at Billingham to be cost-competitive in the long term compared with imported ammonia, primarily because gas prices are projected to remain high in the UK relative to other regions and also because of the effect of carbon costs.
The firm began writing down the value of its UK production assets from the second half of 2021, as high gas prices with no corresponding increase in global nitrogen prices reduced their profitability.
Only one ammonia production site remains in service in the UK — Yara's Immingham site.
