Pupuk Indonesia outlines CCS blue ammonia plans

State-owned fertilizer producer Pupuk Indonesia plans to achieve low-carbon ammonia production using carbon capture and storage (CCS) by 2030-45, it said at the International and Indonesia CCS Forum in Jakarta on 1 August.

Pupuk Indonesia plans to develop seven blue ammonia projects across its various facilities in Aceh, east Kalimantan, south Sumatra and east Java. The company is currently the largest grey ammonia producer in Asia, produced from natural gas without any CCS, with a total production capacity of 7mn t/yr. It will convert its existing grey plants to blue ammonia facilities with the implementation of CCS, targeting a total of 4.3mn t/yr of blue ammonia production by 2045.

CCS is a technology capable of capturing carbon emissions from the air and storing them in a storage facility with carbon emissions directed and injected into old oil and gas wells. Pupuk Indonesia plans to use CCS at five potential sites comprising the Arun field, east Kalimantan, Sunda Asri basin, Gundih and Sukowati. The Pupuk group is expecting potential CCS use to gradually increase to 4.3mn t of carbon dioxide (CO2) by 2045, as part of its efforts to decarbonise ammonia and fertilizer products, while expanding into new markets for blue ammonia.

Pupuk Indonesia's subsidiary Pupuk Iskandar Muda (PIM) is expected to carry out the first low-carbon ammonia project for the group, by building a new blue ammonia plant with a total production capacity of 825,000 t/yr by 2030. Feasibility studies are currently under way at the Arun field as a potential site for CCS with gas supplies from Andaman Sea blocks. The next implementation would be adding around 396,000 t/yr of blue ammonia capacity to its PIM-2 unit by 2035, bringing PIM's blue ammonia total production to 1.2mn t/yr.

Pupuk Indonesia is also planning to add 594,000 t/yr of blue ammonia conversion to another subsidiary Pupuk Kalimantan Timur's Kaltim-2 unit by 2040. The producer has entered into an initial deal with Chevron New Energies International to assess CCS. Pupuk Sriwidjaya's Pusri-2B unit will also be replaced and added with a new blue ammonia plant, achieving 1.32mn t/yr of blue ammonia capacity by 2040-45.

This will be followed by further blue ammonia additions to Pupuk's Petrokimia Gresik plant and the remaining units at the east Kalimantan plant. Pupuk's Gresik plant is expected to have around 495,000 t/yr of blue ammonia capacity at the PG-III unit, with Kaltim to have a 660,000 t/yr new blue ammonia plant.

Pupuk Indonesia plans to work on the development of green ammonia using renewable feedstock beyond 2025 and to achieve ammonia co-firing in coal-fired power plants, with the help of government support, fiscal incentives, partnerships and acceleration of commercialisation operations at CCS sites. Indonesia has a huge potential to become a CCS hub by tapping its storage capacity in depleted oil and gas reservoirs, with total CCS capacity potentially reaching 4.85bn t of CO2, Pupuk Indonesia said.

By Dinise Chng