UPDATED: 03/07/2016 — see Change Log. No further updates expected.

OWNER: Agrebon
PROJECT: Brownfield urea plant[memberful does_not_have_subscription=”1314-ammonia-industry-annual-subscription,1311-ammonia-industry-monthly-subscription,3338-ammonia-industry-30-day-subscription”]

COST (reported): [none given]
JOB CREATION (reported): [none given]
START-UP DATE (reported): [none given]

CAPACITY	USGS[1]	COMPANY[2]	PERMIT[3]	ADJUSTED[4]
Ammonia		20 stpd	[Membership required]	[Membership required]
Units: stpd, stpy, mtpd, mtpy = short/metric tons per day/year. [1] United States Geological Survey (USGS) Mineral Yearbook, Nitrogen gives capacity in metric tons per year, calculated as “engineering design capacity adjusted for 340 days per year of effective production capability,” rounded to three significant digits. Source: most recent year, Table 4: Domestic Producers of Ammonia, http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/nitrogen/. [2] Company reports. Sources: linked below. [3] No permit activity to date. [4] [Membership required]. See Methodology.

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SUMMARY STATUS: Cancelled
Agrebon is no longer developing the Casselton plant. There have been no announcements regarding this site since April 2013. The team behind Agrebon regrouped as Bayotech, which continues to develop small-scale, modular ammonia reactors but shifts the team’s focus away from biomass feedstocks.

COST: [none given]
JOB CREATION: 10 permanent
START-UP DATE: 2017 estimate, no recent announcements
LIKELIHOOD: Dead — see Methodology

CAPACITY	USGS[1]	COMPANY[2]	PERMIT[3]	ADJUSTED[4]
Ammonia		20 stpd		6,622 mtpy
Urea		35 stpd		11,589 mtpy
Units: stpd, stpy, mtpd, mtpy = short/metric tons per day/year. [1] United States Geological Survey (USGS) Mineral Yearbook, Nitrogen gives capacity in metric tons per year, calculated as “engineering design capacity adjusted for 340 days per year of effective production capability,” rounded to three significant digits. Source: most recent year, Table 4: Domestic Producers of Ammonia [LINK]. [2] Company reports. Sources: linked below. [3] No permit activity yet. [4] Adjusted Capacity is in metric tons per year assuming operations for 365 days per year; based on company announcements. See Methodology.

FEEDSTOCK: Biomass (ethanol stillage)
END PRODUCTS: Urea

RESEARCH NOTES:
This biomass-to-urea pilot plant was to be built on the site of Tharaldson Ethanol and was “essentially a pilot project.” Some funding partners were in place but, with no updates since April 2013, I assume that this particular project has now been abandoned.

The team regrouped as Bayotech, and is having some success raising funds for local-scale, modular ammonia production technology.

Agrebon had been busy developing other projects, however, including the Midwest Ammonia Inc project in Monmouth, IL.

The ideas behind this technology were very attractive. Local ammonia synthesis from waste products, more or less co-sited with major fertilizer consumers, could produce cost-competitive urea without economies of scale. With modular plant components, construction might only take 6 months. A similar business model is having more success in California, where Grannus proposes building its pilot plant.

If successful, Agrebon’s business model could have scaled swiftly, replicated at ethanol plants across the US, upgrading ethanol stillage into urea.

“For every 25 MMgy of ethanol produced, the Agrebon system is able to produce 11.5 million pounds of nitrogen,” or “roughly 1 pound of nitrogen for every bushel of corn … [which] removes that carbon footprint.”

(Please note that Agrebon’s carbon accounting here is a case of cherry-picking the desired parts of a life-cycle analysis: all the CO2 put into biomass-urea will enter the atmosphere, none is sequestered, none is “removed,” but emissions are passed from one stage of a product life-cycle to another. To me, this demonstrates negligible carbon footprint improvement.)

This project has received funding attention in North Dakota because it has the “potential to commercialize research performed by the EERC” (the Energy & Environmental Research Center, based in Grand Forks, ND).

In June 2012, Agrebon “closed on a $1 million Series A Preferred Stock financing,” with Leading Edge Angel Fund, LLC, enabling it to make a start with Tharaldson Ethanol. I do not know why work at this site petered out.[/memberful]

View larger map with all ammonia plants.

ADDRESS: Tharaldson Ethanol, 3549 153rd Ave SE, Casselton, ND, 58012, United States

WEBSITE: No longer active at http://www.agrebon.com/

SOURCES:

• 04/08/2013: Ethanol Producer Magazine article: Agrebon to co-locate nitrogen production at N.D. ethanol plant [LINK]
• 01/22/2013: Agrebon press release: Agrebon Technology to Be Used in North Dakota [LINK]
• 08/24/2012: North Dakota Industrial Commission, Renewable Energy Program, Grant Application: Distributed Nitrogen Fertilizer Plant – Engineering and Development [application PDF / response PDF]
• 07/10/2012: The Denver Post, local news article: Colorado business briefs, 6/30 [LINK]