Fertiglobe advances towards commercialising lower-carbon ammonia with new $500 million plant in Ruwais

Fertiglobe is quickly moving to commercialize lower-carbon ammonia in Ruwais, as part of a bigger effort to help ADNOC lead its downstream shift into sustainable nitrogen products. According to their fourth-quarter 2025 results filing with Zawya, the company’s Project Harvest, which involves a 1 million tonne per annum (mtpa) facility at the TA’ZIZ Industrial Chemicals Zone, is scheduled to begin operations in 2027. Construction kicked off in late 2024, following a final investment decision made in July 2024.

The team behind Project Harvest is led by Fertiglobe and includes TA’ZIZ, Mitsui & Co., and GS Energy Corporation. Italy’s Tecnimont is on board as the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor, while KBR supplies the ammonia technology. Fertiglobe mentioned to investors that the project’s capital expenditure will be below $500 million, which they say is pretty competitive for a project of this size, definitely lower than some similar large international projects.

One thing Fertiglobe highlighted is that they’re relying on existing infrastructure in Ruwais, along with nearby feedstock supplies, rather than building massive hydrogen plants from scratch upstream. This approach, they claim, helps keep upfront costs down and speeds up the journey to production by using “over-the-fence” supplies of hydrogen and nitrogen within the industrial complex. Currently, Fertiglobe owns a 30 percent stake in Project Harvest, with an option to increase its share to 54 percent after the plant starts up. This set-up also gives them some flexibility with how much capital to invest initially. ADNOC, which owns about 86.2 percent of Fertiglobe, has said it will transfer its stakes in low-carbon ammonia projects to Fertiglobe at cost once they’re ready to start production. This move strengthens Fertiglobe’s role as ADNOC’s platform for downstream nitrogen and low-carbon ammonia.

Early lifecycle studies commissioned for the project suggest that the facility could reduce carbon intensity by up to 50% compared to traditional ammonia production. Fertiglobe has also indicated plans to push emissions even lower in later phases through carbon capture and storage (CCS). This aligns with a nearby pilot project, where ADNOC and Fertiglobe are testing Carbon Clean’s CycloneCC modular carbon capture units at Fertiglobe’s nitrogen fertilizer site in Al Ruwais. These units, with their rotating packed bed design, are prefabricated, smaller modules that require less capital and energy than traditional capture towers, making the economics of point-source CO2 removal more viable, the companies say.

Project Harvest is just one piece of Fertiglobe’s expanding portfolio of low-carbon initiatives. The company has announced plans to make final investment decisions on other green hydrogen and ammonia projects in the coming months. In their recent quarterly presentation, Fertiglobe mentioned they hope to secure FIDs for projects in Egypt and the U.S. in 2025. For example, the Egypt facility will use a 100 MW electrolyser to produce renewable hydrogen for roughly 74,000 tonnes of green ammonia annually, located at the Ain Sokhna complex, with a target startup date around 2027. Separately, ADNOC’s joint low-carbon hydrogen and ammonia project in Baytown, with ExxonMobil, is expected to reach FID in 2025 and start operations by 2029; ADNOC plans to transfer its ownership stake to Fertiglobe once it’s operational.

Fertiglobe is also collaborating with Masdar and ENGIE on a planned green hydrogen plant, up to 200 MW, in the UAE. The aim is for this facility to start in 2025 and supply green hydrogen to Fertiglobe’s ammonia operations in Al Ruwais, with Fertiglobe as the main long-term customer. The management sees these partnerships as a way to accelerate decarbonization efforts while keeping ammonia production costs in check.

On a broader scale, Fertiglobe is pursuing multiple strategies to benefit from the growing demand for sustainable fuels and nitrogen products. Their “Grow 2030” plan, for instance, aims for over $1 billion in EBITDA by the end of the decade, focusing on expanding into higher-margin products like automotive-grade urea and diesel exhaust fluid. They believe that diversifying their product base and rolling out low-carbon ammonia will together lead to significant EBITDA improvements over the next few years.

Of course, there are still technical and market risks involved. Fertiglobe mentioned that Project Rabdan, another blue ammonia initiative in Abu Dhabi, still needs to see favorable capital and operational costs as well as secured offtake agreements before reaching FID. Industry experts also point out that the economics of low-carbon ammonia largely depend on hydrogen costs, carbon pricing policies, and the availability of sequestration or export markets for captured CO2. Relying on existing hydrogen routes in Ruwais certainly cuts some development risks but also leaves the project vulnerable to fluctuations in feedstock prices and negotiations with neighboring producers.

For Abu Dhabi, these projects, like Harvest and others, mark a shift toward a lower-emission nitrogen industry and the adoption of modular, carbon-management techniques. If all goes according to schedule, Fertiglobe aims to bring one of the region’s first commercial-scale, lower-carbon ammonia plants online in 2027, while continuing to build a pipeline of green and blue ammonia ventures. Their focus on pragmatic capital investments and shared infrastructure could serve as a model for other Gulf producers looking for a faster, more manageable way to decarbonize.