With farmers suffering from high global fertilizer prices due to the war in Iran, Trump Administration officials held a press conference May 19 unveiling their plan to speed up permitting for a Louisiana facility they said would help provide economic relief for the American agricultural community.

The only problem? The majority of the ammonia manufactured from natural gas at the proposed Blue Point Complex near Donaldsonville will not be used to make fertilizer, but rather to ship to overseas customers and as a fuel for a power plant and a steel factory, according to corporate disclosures and announcements. The plant is also not expected to start operations until 2030, so it will not be available to meet immediate needs. 

But that’s not how Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin presented it to the news media. They said they were speeding up the permitting of CF Industries’ Blue Point complex to churn out nitrogen-based fertilizers vital for maintaining crop yields on American farms.

The project is part of the “RiverPlex MegaPark,” a planned 17,000-acre industrial site that would displace the community of Modeste, a majority-Black community of about 600 people, many of whom trace their ancestry to enslaved people who worked the former plantations that lined the river between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.  The planned project would bring health harming pollution, heavy traffic,  and noise from two massive new ammonia factories, a steel plant, gas-fired power plant, and carbon waste disposal pipelines.

Anne Rolfes, director of Louisiana Bucket Brigade, one of the local groups pushing back against the proposal, said the Trump Administration’s misrepresentation of the project’s purpose, and the fast-tracked approval, are both a “bright red flashing light.”

“The permitting process by nature is intended to be a thorough review that carefully considers the impacts on local people,” Rolfes said. “Trump's guarantee of permit approval turns the process into a rubber stamp and makes a mockery of the laws intended to protect us.”

U.S. fertilizer giant CF Industries is planning the $4 billion Blue Point project along with JERA, a global energy company Japan’s largest power provider, and Mitsui, a major Japanese industrial conglomerate.

In a press release, JERA said that the factory will be “the largest ammonia production facility in the world,” churning out 1.4 million tons a year. “JERA will offtake the produced ammonia to supply markets in Europe, Asia, and other regions,” the Japanese energy company said. 

The companies say they plan to capture 95 percent of the plant’s carbon dioxide emissions and inject that carbon into nearby storage wells – with the resulting product labeled “low-carbon” ammonia. 

The industry considers low-carbon ammonia more valuable than traditionally produced ammonia because companies and governments can count it towards their climate goals. Ammonia, a compound made of three hydrogen atoms and one nitrogen atom (NH3), is used to transport hydrogen fuel, which does not emit climate-warming greenhouse gases when burned. (Ammonia is easier to transport than pure hydrogen.  So hydrogen is converted into ammonia for shipping, and then converted back to hydrogen before it is burned.) JERA and Mitsui – who combined own a 60-percent stake in Blue Point – have both received certifications from the Japanese trade ministry as “suppliers of low-carbon hydrogen.”

Still, the Blue Point facility could generate up to 926 tons per year of health-harming “criteria” air pollutants that form smog and soot, along with nearly 342,000 pounds per year of hazardous air pollutants, according to permit documents. It could also generate up to 467,000 tons per year of greenhouse gases, roughly equal to more than 94,000 cars and trucks driven for a year. 

Blue Point’s construction would also impact nearly 50 acres of wetlands and waterways, according to the company’s wetlands permit application with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the administration is fast-tracking.

“That permit we moved at Trump speed, as we like to say,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said of the wetlands permit at the press conference.

Rollins and other Trump officials did not mention the source of the fertilizer price spike since late February: the Trump Administration’s war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The strait is a vital chokepoint for both fertilizers and natural gas, which is the both the raw ingredient to produce ammonia and as the largest energy source for the ammonia-manufacturing process. 

The war has sent prices for nitrogen fertilizers soaring as high as 40 percent compared to before Feb. 28, when the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran. This has caused problems for farmers, 70 percent of whom said in a recent survey that they cannot afford all the fertilizer they need. But the war has been profitable for fertilizer companies, with CF Industries last month reporting a 20-percent bump in revenue for the first quarter of the year because of the global fertilizer supply crunch.

However, despite Trump officials’ claims, recent CF Industries corporate filings indicate that the majority of the ammonia produced at Blue Point would go to heavy industry, not farmers, as well as to overseas customers. 

In a May 7 filing, CF Industries stated that it owns a 40-percent stake in Blue Point. JERA and Mitsui own 35 percent and 25 percent, respectively. The three companies “are required to purchase low-carbon ammonia produced by the Blue Point joint venture in accordance with our respective ownership percentages once production commences,” the filing states.

That means CF Industries will get 40 percent of the plant’s output, with the remaining 60 percent going to JERA and Mitsui. It remains unclear how much of CF Industries’ share of the ammonia will be used for fertilizer.

For the other 60 percent, JERA and Mitsui “have committed low-carbon ammonia volumes from the Blue Point joint venture for power generation and steel production, among other uses,” CF Industries’ corporate filing states. 

Mitsui said in a press release that its share of the ammonia will be shipped overseas. “Each shareholder will offtake the produced ammonia, and Mitsui plans to sell those to Europe, Asia and other locations,” the press release said. 

Lead photo: A screenshot from a May 19 press conference hosted by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and other Trump officials.