CF Industries and POET Collaborate to Launch Pilot Project: Low-Carbon Fertilizers Empower Low-Carbon Ethanol Production

Recently, CF Industries and POET announced a partnership to launch an innovative pilot project in the United States, producing low-carbon ethanol using low-carbon fertilizers. By establishing a low-carbon value chain from agriculture to energy, the initiative aims to promote the sustainable development of the biofuel industry.

The project collaborates with multiple agricultural cooperatives to build a low-carbon fertilizer supply chain, covering pilot areas across Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and Nebraska. Among these efforts, CF Industries produces low-carbon ammonia at its Donaldsonville facility using carbon capture and storage technology, with an annual production capacity of 1.9 million tons, sufficient to meet the fertilizer needs for 19 to 22 million acres of corn cultivation. In the fall of 2025, the project completed the first sales and field applications of low-carbon ammonia fertilizer.

POET will process corn grown with this low-carbon fertilizer at its biofuel facilities in Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska, with an estimated output of 5 to 6 million gallons of low-carbon intensity ethanol.

Bert Frost, Commercial President of CF Industries, stated that low-carbon fertilizers provide a quantifiable and certifiable solution for decarbonizing the raw material phase of bioethanol production. Christian McIlvain, President of Grain & Processing at POET, also noted that this partnership opens a new pathway for reducing the carbon intensity of ethanol, offering both environmental benefits and economic value. Both parties emphasized that this pilot represents a deep collaboration between agriculture and energy sectors, providing a practical model for the low-carbon transformation of the biofuel industry chain.