Bulk bags of unprocessed urea (unkonditionierter Harnstoff) await transport at the SKW Piesteritz agro-chemical plant in Piesteritz, near Wittenberg, April 9. AFP-Yonhap
WITTENBERG, Germany — As Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz roils the global economy, one German town has been scrambling to help make up the shortfall in essential supplies of fertilizers.
Wittenberg, better known to many as a cradle of the Protestant Reformation, is also home to a chemical plant founded in 1915, in the midst of World War I.
At that time the aim was to produce nitrogen for explosives and fertilizers to circumvent a blockade which prevented certain raw materials being imported from Chile.
More than a century later, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz "shows that it's still the same thing today — sea routes can collapse," Christopher Profitlich, spokesman for the SKW company, which took over the site in 1993, told AFP.
A third of the world's fertilizers normally pass through the Strait of Hormuz and the World Trade Organization (WTO) has warned that the blockade there threatens global food security, particularly in Africa and South Asia.
"That's why it makes so much sense to have production in Europe," Profitlich said.
At SKW's sprawling 220-hectare site, a 23-kilometer rail network transports urea, ammonia and finished fertilisers, destined for sites across Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
Crystals are seen developed around a pole as a stock pile of granular urea is seen at a storage facilty at the SKW Piesteritz agro-chemical plant in Piesteritz near Wittenberg, northern Germany, April 9. AFP-Yonhap
SKW is Germany's largest producer of urea, an essential component of fertilizers. In one of its warehouses, a mountain of acrid-smelling white powder rises several metres high.
Source: Korea Times News
