ON A DRIVE around the vast production site of SKW Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz, Germany’s largest producer of ammonia, near Wittenberg, a spokesman for the firm points at a giant yellow valve. “Normally around 2% of Germany’s industrial consumption of natural gas comes out of this thing,” he says. Last month, however, SKW shut one of the two ammonia plants at the site and slashed its production of fertiliser.
