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Beer Rationed as UK's Food-Grade Carbon Dioxide Runs Low

posted by martyb on Wednesday June 27 2018, @04:58AM   
from the sales-are...-flat? dept.

black6host writes:

The UK’s biggest wholesaler has begun rationing beer, cider and soft drinks as rising demand amid the heatwave and England’s World Cup campaign comes up against a shortage of food-grade carbon dioxide gas (CO2) which is hitting supplies.

Booker, which supplies thousands of convenience stores including the Londis, Budgens and Premier chains, as well as restaurant chains including Wagamama and Carluccio’s, is limiting beer and soft drinks purchases to 10 cases per customer and cider to five cases. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jun/26/beer-rationed-as-uks-food-grade-carbon-dioxide-runs-low

This is a serious problem as it reads as if they're limiting stores and restaurants. Not individuals though most would not need 10 cases. Unless there was a run on beer :)

Somehow, can't we fix climate change and the beer problem at the same time?

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Original Submission

• Interesting cause (Score: 5, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday June 27 2018, @06:34AM

  by khallow (3766) on Wednesday June 27 2018, @06:34AM (#699173) Journal

  I clicked through the references to get at the underlying cause [gasworld.com].

  Traditionally, one of the largest sources of food grade CO2 in Europe has been from ammonia plants. While in the past decade, other sources of CO2 have been invested in – including raw gas streams from chemical operations and bi-ethanol plants – ammonia still remains one of the largest sources, especially in Western Europe. Major ammonia plants exist in the UK, Norway, the Netherlands and in France.
  
  However, ammonia is used in fertiliser production and the peak production output for fertilisers is generally from August to March or winter months. Fertiliser companies then plan maintenance or shutdowns in April through to June on a regular basis – but this is coincidently the peak time for production of soft and alcoholic drinks. What has compounded the situation this year is not only the timing of all the maintenance procedures, but that ammonia market prices have fallen to a low and imports are available from outside of Western Europe that has led to European producers prolonging the downtime of the ammonia plants within the region. Also due to the higher pricing of natural gas – a major raw material for ammonia production - the margins in the ammonia business are not that attractive as well.

  [...]

  It appears the UK is hardest hit – with only one major CO2 plant operating as we go to press. Very reliant on imports from Scandinavia and also the Netherlands – the UK is doubly impacted in that there are limited movements across the Channel due to the plant shut-downs in the Benelux and France limiting product to ship.

  So a massive drop in the profitability of ammonia production from expensive methane resulted in a huge drop in the secondary product of food-grade CO2. UK was particularly hard hit because it had only one CO2 producer.

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+4
  Insightful=1, Informative=3, Total=4
  Extra 'Informative' Modifier		0
  Total Score:		5