Chemtrade plant to be up by mid-January

Toronto-Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund said Jan. 5 that all of the equipment necessary to restart the Beaumont, Texas, plant has now been installed. The plant is currently undergoing various pre-startup tests and is scheduled to resume operations by mid-January. “The actual startup of the plant is approximately two weeks late due to a delay in the delivery of certain equipment,” said Mark David, Chemtrade president and CEO. “Everything we need is now in place, and we expect the startup of the plant to commence by mid-January. The work involved to bring the plant to this state within this timeframe was significant, and everyone who worked on the project is to be congratulated for their efforts in achieving a successful outcome.” Davis also provided an update on the Fund’s outlook for 2009. “Clearly, we are living in a time of great economic upheaval and uncertainty which affects our customers and suppliers and makes it challenging to provide financial outlooks. However, we continue to believe that our business model and the initiatives we implemented over recent years will enable us to generate distributable cash after maintenance capital expenditures well in excess of our distribution rate of $1.20 per unit and consistent with our prior disclosure. The speedy, safe and efficient return of our Beaumont plant to full operations will further increase our confidence in achieving our outlook for 2009.” He noted that Chemtrade’s strong cash flow generation in 2008 continued to strengthen its balance sheet. “We have no debt due until 2011 and during 2008 repurchased over $17 million worth of units (approximately 1.8 million units) under our normal course issuer bid, while also reducing our operating line of credit by over U.S. $25 million.”