NITROGEN PRODUCT CONSUMPTION

By 2002, urea was expected to account for about 61% of worldwide consumption of the four major downstream nitrogen products. World urea consumption is forecast to increase at an average annual rate of 2.4% between 1999 and 200436. By definition, apparent consumption is equal to production plus imports minus exports. Thus apparent world consumption equals reported world production35. 

Ammonium Nitrate Calcium Ammonium Nitrate Ammonia - Direct Application Nitrogen Solutions Mono- Ammonium Phosphate/ Di-Ammonium Phosphate Other NP compounds NK / NPK compounds Others3 Total nitrogen 

Others Calcium nitrate, sodium nitrate, ammonium chloride, calcium cyanamide, ammonium bicarbonate 

From 1994 to 1998 world nitrogen fertilizer consumption increased at an average rate of 3% per year. Socialist Asia, South Asia and Latin American led the consumption increases. Consumption in Western Europe stabilized while demand in the former Soviet Union continued to fall. From 1998 to 2000, world nitrogen fertilizer consumption increased more slowly than it had in the previous period36. 

From 2000 to 2005, world nitrogen fertilizer consumption is forecast to increase by 2.3% per year. A gradual decline is expected in Western Europe and Japan. The consumption increases are forecast to occur primarily in the regions listed in Table 3.4  

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Figure 3. Relationship between secondary metabolite production, consumption of nitrogen and carbon sources, and growth of the brown-rot fungus Lentinus lepideus (HC-LN medium).

Figure 3.5. World nitrogen fertilizer consumption by product. (Reproduced by permission of International Fertilizer Industry Association)...

Since no economical nitrogen fixation process that starts with nitrogen oxides has been discovered, ammonia has developed into the most important building block for synthetic nitrogen products worldwide. Prior to World War II, ammonia production capacity remained relatively stable. But during the war the need for explosives caused an increase in the production of ammonia for nitric acid manufacture. Then, after the war, the ammonia plants were used to manufacture fertilizers. As a result, there was a rapid increase in fertilizer consumption. The advantages of fertilizers were emphasized, and production capacity increased by leaps and bounds. 

Tables 3.5 and 3.6 show that US consumption of nitrogen products has been flat to growing slightly since the mid-1990 s. It should be noted that ammonia consumption in the United States decreased by 1 percent per year from 1996 to 2001. However US ammonia consumption was forecast to increase by 2 percent per year from 2003 through 2005223. To maintain the US ammonia supply at the level that is needed to satisfy consumers, ammonia imports have increased whenever the operating rate declines (as shown in Figure 3.18). Therefore ammonia imports to the USA increase whenever natural gas prices increase (see Figure 3.19). Western and Central European countries experience similar dynamics in their ammonia markets.

In 2002, urea accounted for almost 61 percent of worldwide consumption of the four major downstream nitrogen products. World... 

World Ammonia Production, Consumption and Trade , Statistical supplement, Nitrogen 217 (1995) 22. 

Fl re 35 4 Time course of oxygen production ( ), consumption (A) and acetylene reduction (O) during the photoperiod in Trichodesmium sp. IMS 101 grown with N2 (A) and nitrate (B) as nitrogen sources. Error bars are dzl standard deviation. 

World capacity for the production of nitrogen as a fertilizer has increased from 1975 to the present, and is expected to continue to grow because of new installations in the former Soviet Union, Asia, and Eastern Europe. Up until 1972, nitrogen fertilizer consumption in North America exceeded that in Asia. However, by 1985, consumption in Asia was 1.4 times that in North America and 1.6 times that in the Soviet Union. 

The production and consumption of artificial fertilizers have increased enormously since 1945 as agriculture industrialized a further sevenfold increase in nitrogenous fertilizer consumption has occurred in the last 40 years. According to Jenssen and Kongshaug (2003), current production consumes c. 1.2 percent of the world s energy and releases e. 1.2 percent of the total volume of greenhouse gases, notably earbon dioxide and nitrous oxides. 

Year Ammonia Production (kt NH,) Nitrogen Fertilizer Consumption (kt N)... 

Capacity, Production, and Consumption. Ammonia production has worldwide significance about 85% of the ammonia produced is used for nitrogen fertilizers. As the primary source of fertilizer nitrogen, it is key to solving world food production requkements. The remaining 15% goes into various industrial products such as fibers, animal feeds, explosives, etc. 

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