CVR Energy Nitrogen Fertilizer Operations

CVR Energy’s nitrogen fertilizer business includes a unique petroleum coke gasification facility, Coffeyville Resources Nitrogen Fertilizers, which is located adjacent to our oil refinery in Coffeyville, Kan. The 20-acre nitrogen fertilizer plant is the only commercial facility in North America that uses low cost petroleum coke - as opposed to natural gas - to produce nitrogen fertilizers.

The majority of the petroleum coke used in the state-of-the-art gasification process is supplied by our refinery. Using petroleum coke in the gasification process provides the nitrogen fertilizer business with a significant competitive advantage. The plant uses less than one percent of the natural gas utilized by other nitrogen-based fertilizer facilities that are heavily dependent upon natural gas as a feedstock. As a result, our facility is not subject to the kind of periodic economic closures that often occur at domestic, natural gas-based ammonia plants during periods of high natural gas prices.

The technology we use to produce ammonia and UAN is complex. The gasifier converts low cost petroleum coke, a refinery byproduct, into a hydrogen rich synthesis gas. The syngas is then converted into anhydrous ammonia in an ultra high efficiency ammonia plant licensed from Ammonia Casale. Approximately two-thirds of the ammonia is further upgraded into UAN in a fully integrated plant licensed from Weatherly, which is the largest single train UAN plant in North America.

Our refinery also produces high purity hydrogen for export to the nitrogen fertilizer plant. The hydrogen, which would otherwise be consumed as fuel, is converted into value-added ammonia using available excess capacity in the ammonia plant.

In 2008, Coffeyville Resources Nitrogen Fertilizers produced 112,500 tons of ammonia available for sale, and also produced 599,200 tons of UAN.