Actual values or defaults? A one-tonne answer for urea
CBAM · 4 min read
An EU importer can declare your urea with the EU default value for Egypt, or with your plant's verified actual value.
The default is set high on purpose, and from 2026 it carries a mark-up.
On an illustrative plant, actual data gives 1.117 t CO₂ per tonne of urea against a default of 1.404. After free allocation,
the importer needs 0.228 certificates per tonne with actual data and 0.524 with the default. At €75/t CO₂, the difference is about €22 per tonne.
Actual values are not free: they need a monitoring plan, metering and a verifier. For a plant shipping a few thousand tonnes,
the default may be the cheaper route. That is the question Phase 0 answers, in 3–5 days.
See the full working
Five places CBAM numbers go wrong in fertilizer plants
CBAM · 3 min read
The regulation is not where most errors hide. They hide in the steam header and the generator.
- A shared steam network charged at the boiler's factor instead of the network's own.
- Steam sent to another process at the wrong factor: it carries the fuel mix of the process that made it.
- Synthesis-loop steam treated as zero without a meter of its own.
- An own generator credited with its actual factor without the hourly evidence the rules ask for.
- Ammonia counted in the urea at a different value than the ammonia plant reported.
Each one moves the split between ammonia and urea, or between direct and indirect emissions, more than the plant total. Verifiers look there first.
Read the EPD before you use its number
Construction carbon · 3 min read
Monthly embodied-carbon sheets ask for one GWP value per material. The EPD behind it deserves a two-minute check first:
- Product: is it the mix or product actually delivered, or a similar one?
- Plant and region: product-specific for the supplying plant, or industry-wide?
- Validity: EPDs expire, typically after five years.
- Declared unit: per cubic yard, per cubic meter, per short ton or per metric tonne?
- Life-cycle modules: usually A1–A3, cradle to gate. Do not mix in transport or installation without saying so.
- Program operator and verification: who published it, and was it independently verified?
An industry-wide EPD is useful when nothing better exists, but its own text warns against direct comparison without the functional unit. Say which kind you used.
