EFFICIENCY OF MINERAL FERTILIZER PRODUCTION IN WESTERN SIBERIA

V. B. BURAN, S. I. SMOLYANINOV

(Presented by the scientific-methodological seminar of the Faculty of Chemical Technology)

In Western Siberia, mineral fertilizers are produced at two large enterprises. In 1960 the fertilizer industry of this region supplied the country’s agriculture with 614 thousand tons of mineral fertilizers, including 267 thousand tons for the agriculture of the West Siberian Economic Region¹.

The use of mineral fertilizers increases the efficiency of agricultural labor expenditures. Calculations show that on the soils of Western Siberia, provided the necessary rules of agricultural technology are observed, the use of fertilizers makes it possible to obtain additional net income exceeding the costs of fertilizer application by 1.5–3.5 times. In addition, it is known that each hour spent on the production of fertilizers saves 25 hours of labor in agriculture. The further development of the fertilizer industry of Western Siberia will ensure an expansion of mineral fertilizer supplies, which is an essential prerequisite for introducing a scientific organization of labor in agriculture. If in 1960 the agriculture of the West Siberian Economic Region received, according to the work by V. V. Kistanov cited above, 375 thousand tons of mineral fertilizers, then calculations show that by 1970, in order to fully satisfy the fertilizer requirements of industrial-crop plantings and 50% of the requirements of grain crops, 2.2 million tons of mineral fertilizers are needed. By 1980, with full satisfaction of the region’s agricultural demand for mineral fertilizers, their deliveries should increase to 11 million tons per year. At the same time, the demand for nitrogen fertilizers can be fully covered through the further development of the region’s nitrogen-fertilizer industry; the demand for phosphate fertilizers can be met by creating a phosphate-fertilizer industry on the basis of phosphorites from the Tashtagol deposit.

The existing enterprises of the fertilizer industry of Western Siberia have large reserves for increasing the volume of fertilizer production and improving technical-and-economic indicators. One such reserve is the improvement of production organization through the refinement of existing technology and the introduction of the most advanced fertilizer-production technology.

In Western Siberia the production of nitrogen fertilizers has been organized on the basis of processing coke-oven gas and metallurgical coke. The principal initial semi-product in the production of nitrogen fertilizers is ammonia, which at the Kemerovo Nitrogen-Fertilizer Plant is produced by separating coke-oven gas by the deep-cooling method, and at the Novo-Kemerovo Chemical Combine by the conversion method (gasification of coke). Of the total volume of ammonia produced in 1963, 41.6% was obtained from coke processing and 58.4% from coke-oven gas. Correspondingly, 42.1% of ammonium nitrate production was concentrated on ammonia from coke and 57.9% on ammonia from coke-oven gas. At the same time, in the nitrogen-fertilizer industry of the Soviet Union only 20.1% of ammonia was produced on the basis of solid fuel, 20.2% was produced from coke-oven gas, and about 50% from natural and associated gases. Thus, with the use of the most progressive types of raw material (natural and associated gases) and progressive technology, almost half of all ammonia was produced in the USSR. In the fertilizer industry of Western Siberia, natural and associated gas are not yet being used. The discovery in recent years of large gas fields in this region makes it possible to consider the question of the advisability of directing it to chemical processing for the production of nitrogen fertilizers, synthetic materials, and other products.

The present concentration in Western Siberia of large-scale production of nitrogen fertilizers based on solid fuel leads to a reduction in the efficiency of fertilizer production, and to a reduction in the efficiency of the use of labor resources and fixed production assets. Thus, the production of ammonia from solid fuel at the Novo-Kemerovo Chemical Combine costs 81.8% more, and, correspondingly, ammonium nitrate 60.5% more, than at the Kemerovo Nitrogen-Fertilizer Plant, where coke-oven gas is used.

The production of nitrogen fertilizers is material-intensive. Material costs in the cost of ammonium nitrate amount to 79–95%, with the largest share of costs falling on ammonia and nitric acid. More than 65% of the cost of ammonium nitrate is formed by ammonia costs. Consequently, increasing the efficiency of nitrogen-fertilizer production is directly dependent on the progressiveness of ammonia-production technology and the progressiveness of the raw-material base.

Fluctuations in the cost of ammonia exceed a factor of 2. The average sectoral ratio of its cost for the various methods (Table 1) indicates that the lowest costs in ammonia production are ensured when coke-oven and natural gases are processed.

The transfer of ammonia production from solid fuel to natural gas will make it possible significantly to increase labor productivity while also reducing costs. Thus, with the conversion, labor inputs per ton of ammonia are reduced almost twofold, and working conditions improve.

The level of labor productivity is directly dependent on the method of production (Table 2). Technological schemes for ammonia production when natural gas is processed ensure higher labor productivity than when solid fuel is processed. At the same time, the capacity of technological lines increases, owing to which the capacities of shops for the production of mineral fertilizers grow, which also leads to an increase in labor productivity in these shops.

Thus, the introduction of progressive technology contributes to increasing the productive power of labor.

The September (1965) Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee adopted a decision to increase the interest of enterprises in highly profitable work.

Table 1

Average sectoral cost of ammonia production by production methods
for 1963 (as a percentage of the average for the nitrogen industry)

Table 2

Labor productivity in ammonia production
by production methods for 1963 (as a percentage
of labor productivity at the Novo-Kemerovo
Chemical Combine)

Large reserves for increasing efficiency exist in the fertilizer industry of Western Siberia. Thus, while the Kemerovo Nitrogen-Fertilizer Plant achieves a high level of capital productivity, at the Novo-Kemerovo Chemical Combine this indicator in ammonia production is 56.8% lower, and in ammonium-nitrate production 39.1% lower, than at the Kemerovo Nitrogen-Fertilizer Plant. The main direction for increasing capital productivity is improved utilization of equipment, since, according to 1964 data, the average annual capacity of ammonia production at the Novo-Kemerovo Chemical Combine was utilized by 81.6%. To a considerable extent, the work of ammonia production at this enterprise is held back by the presence of “bottlenecks.” In particular, there is the low throughput capacity of the “CO purification” stage, as well as the instability of the gas-compression technological process, in which in 1964 there were 388 stoppages of gas compressors.

The level of capital productivity of the mineral-fertilizer shops of the plants of Western Siberia is high in comparison with analogous production facilities

of other plants in the country. Here, too, however, there are reserves, since the equipment is not being used at full capacity because of a shortage of ammonia.

Calculations carried out of efficiency in terms of profitability (profit) of ammonium nitrate production at the plants of Western Siberia, taking into account the associated capital investments in ammonia production and in the production of weak nitric acid, show that if at the Kemerovo Nitrogen-Fertilizer Plant, for each ruble of capital investment in fertilizer production, 0.396 rubles of profit were obtained in 1964, then at the Novo-Kemerovo Chemical Combine the figure was 0.027 rubles. Consequently, the efficiency of capital investments in ammonium nitrate production at the Novo-Kemerovo Chemical Combine is 13 times lower than at the Kemerovo Nitrogen-Fertilizer Plant.

Eliminating the “bottlenecks” will, according to calculations, make it possible to increase efficiency in terms of profitability (profit) at the Kemerovo Nitrogen-Fertilizer Plant by 2.5%, and at the Novo-Kemerovo Chemical Combine by 10–12%. At the same time, the greatest effect in the organization of fertilizer production at the Novo-Kemerovo Chemical Combine can be achieved by converting it to a new technology using Myldzhino natural gas from Tomsk Oblast. The experience of converting the Novomoskovsk and Lisichansk chemical combines to natural gas shows that the cost of ammonia after conversion decreases by 39–48%, and the cost of ammonium nitrate by 20–32%.

According to the calculations presented, the cost of ammonia production at the Novo-Kemerovo Chemical Combine after conversion to natural gas will decrease by a factor of 2, and that of ammonium nitrate correspondingly by 32–33%, while the efficiency of fertilizer production in terms of profit will increase more than fivefold.

1. V. V. Kistanov. Integrated Development and Specialization of the Economies of Economic Regions. Moscow: Ekonomika Publishing House, p. 74, 1965. ↩