US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has announced the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) recently closed a loan to support independent, American-made, coal-powered fertilizer production.
The US$1.5 billion loan to Wabash Valley Resources, LLC, will help finance a coal and ammonia fertilizer facility in West Terre Haute, Indiana. The project will restart and repurpose a coal gasification plant idled since 2016 to produce 500 000 tpy of anhydrous ammonia by using coal from a nearby Southern Indiana mine and petcoke as feedstock.
“For too long, America has been dependent on foreign sources of fertilizer”, said Secretary Wright. “Under President Trump’s leadership, we are changing that by putting America first, relying on American coal, American workers, and American innovation to power our farms and feed our families.”
By investing in a coal community, the Wabash project will bring the gasification plant back online to produce ammonia fertilizer – a vital resource for farmers across the Corn Belt, which currently relies on imports from Canada, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Russia.
The project will strengthen domestic supply chains, lower costs for farmers and consumers, and strengthen national food security by producing cost-competitive ammonia for the Eastern Corn Belt while creating hundreds of American jobs.
According to the statement released by the DOE, the loan, which was evaluated under the new LPO guidance directed by Secretary Wright, aims to deliver on the Trump administration’s promise to responsibly steward taxpayer dollars and unleash ‘American energy dominance’.