DOE backs coke to ammonia plant

The US Department of Energy is offering $1.6 billion in loan guarantees to Wabash Valley Resources, which is developing a low-carbon ammonia plant in West Terre Haute, Indiana. The plant will cost a total of $2.4 billion. It will repurpose a former Duke Energy gasifier that was in a power plant. As part of the Wabash Valley project, the unit will gasify petroleum coke, a by-product of petroleum refining, into hydrogen feedstock to produce 500,000 metric tons (t) per year of ammonia for fertilizers. The plant will be equipped with carbon capture and storage equipment to sequester 1.6 million t of carbon dioxide emissions annually.