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Sabic Agri-Nutrients Company has announced that it has received approval from Saudi Arabia’s Energy Ministry for the allocation of required quantities of feedstock for its planned blue ammonia production facility in the kingdom.

Sabic Agri-Nutrients, in which Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) owns the majority 50.1% share, plans to build the low-carbon ammonia plant in Jubail Industrial City, located in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.

This planned blue ammonia plant will be Sabic Agri-Nutrients' sixth manufacturing facility, the company said in a filing with the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul), where its shares are listed.

The proposed complex will have a production capacity of 1.2 million metric tonnes a year of blue ammonia and 1.1 million metric tonnes a year of urea and specialised agri-nutrients.

Sabic Agri-Nutrients will perform the engineering and feasibility studies, and will select technologies that are “the most efficient in energy and feedstock utilisation”, it added in its filing.

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Formerly Saudi Arabian Fertiliser Company, Sabic Agri-Nutrients was the first petrochemicals company to be established in Saudi Arabia in 1965.

Sabic Agri-Nutrients is one of the leading global fertiliser producers, with a portfolio that includes urea, ammonia, phosphate and other specialised products.

The company has struck several deals with customers worldwide in recent months to supply low-carbon ammonia and urea.

In April last year, Sabic Agri-Nutrients shipped the first independently certified low-carbon ammonia from Saudi Arabia to Japan, where it will be used as fuel for power generation. The ammonia was produced with feedstock from Saudi Aramco, sold by Aramco Trading Company to Fuji Oil Company and transported by Mitsui OSK Lines.

Following that, Sabic Agri-Nutrients shipped a cargo of 5,000 metric tonnes of low-carbon ammonia in May 2023 to a customer in India named Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative.

The company then shipped 5,000 metric tonnes of low-carbon ammonia to Taiwan Fertiliser Company in June 2023.

Sabic Agri-Nutrients’ latest supply order came in July last year when it shipped a 2,700-tonne cargo of low-carbon urea to Ravensdown, a New Zealand farmer-owned agricultural co-operative company.