Producer
CF Fertilisers UK
UK ammonia and fertilizer producer whose Billingham plant supplied approximately 30% of UK food-grade CO2 as a byproduct; August 2022 shutdown (due to natural gas price spike from Russia energy cutoff) triggered national beer, meat, and food packaging CO2 shortage; subsidiary of CF Industries (US)
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Inputs supplied
2
Goods downstream
1
Facilities
0
Stories
What they make
1 input CF Fertilisers UK supplies
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What else they do
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Ammonia Production
60%CO2 Byproduct Supply
25%Nitrogen Fertilizers
15%
Intelligence
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Did you know2021
CF Fertilisers UK is publicly known as a fertilizer company, but their ammonia synthesis at Billingham produced approximately 30% of UK food-grade CO2 as a byproduct. In September 2021, CF Fertilisers suspended UK ammonia production when UK natural gas prices rose above the cost of ammonia production — driven by the Russia-Ukraine conflict disrupting European gas supplies. Within weeks, UK food-grade CO2 stocks fell to crisis levels. CO2 is used simultaneously for: beer and soft drink carbonation (Heineken UK, all UK breweries), modified atmosphere packaging for supermarket fresh meat, CO2-stunning of pigs and poultry at abattoirs (legally required under UK welfare regulations), dry ice for frozen food transport, and medical insufflation gas for laparoscopic surgery. The UK government paid CF Industries an emergency subsidy to restart the Billingham plant temporarily — a fertilizer company received UK taxpayer emergency funds not for agricultural reasons but because it was the national emergency carbonation gas supplier for beer, meat, and surgery. The UK CO2 supply chain had zero redundancy to an ammonia production pause.
BBC News ↗Origin2023
CF Fertilisers UK's Billingham plant was built in 1962 as part of ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) — the same company whose Nobel Prize-winning scientist Alfred Baeyer developed aspirin precursors and whose Billingham site pioneered the British ammonia industry. ICI Billingham had been the largest chemical complex in the UK, producing chemicals from coal and later North Sea gas since the 1920s. CF Industries acquired the UK nitrogen business in 2010. The dependency on UK food-grade CO2 from Billingham developed silently: as other UK CO2 sources (ethylene oxide plants, bioethanol plants) closed due to economics, CF Fertilisers became the dominant supplier without anyone in the food/beverage supply chain noticing until the 2021 crisis. The UK spent decades unknowingly concentrating its carbonation gas supply into one fertilizer company's waste stream.
CF Fertilisers UK ↗