Petrobras resumed urea production on Thursday, 30, at the Araucária Nitrogenados S.A. (Ansa) plant in Araucária, near Curitiba in Paraná. The facility had been idle since 2020 and required a R$ 870 million investment. The state-owned company aims to cut reliance on imported fertilizers amid the sector's crisis.
The resumption comes amid the fertilizer crisis, worsened by Middle East conflicts and the Ukraine war that began in 2022. These events pressure Brazil, which imports about 80% of its fertilizers. Petrobras announced the reactivation in 2024, following maintenance, inspections, and operational tests.
"Ansa resumes urea production at a time when expanding domestic capacity for this input is increasingly relevant for Brazil," said Marcelo dos Santos Faria, industrial director and interim president of Ansa.
The Araucária plant can produce 720,000 tons of urea annually, or 8% of Brazil's demand. It also makes ammonia (475,000 tons/year) and Arla 32 (450,000 tons/year). Together with units in Sergipe and Bahia, restarted between December 2025 and January 2026, Petrobras expects to meet 20% of the national urea market.
The process created over 2,000 jobs in the region during reactivation and employs about 700 workers at full operation.
