Sources with Honeywell confirmed last week that the company’s Hopewell, Va., facility, which produces caprolactam and ammonium sulfate fertilizer, is currently down due to a mechanical issue.
Peter Dalpe, director of external communications for Honeywell’s Specialty Materials division, told Green Markets the facility went down the week after Thanksgiving, but would not divulge what the problem is or how long the outage would last. “We consider that competitive and propriety information,” he said.
The Hopewell facility’s nameplate capacity for its Sulf-N ammonium sulfate fertilizer grades is 1.4 million mt/y. Industry sources said the unplanned outage will likely further tighten domestic ammonium sulfate inventories, and some cited the outage for higher ammonium sulfate prices last week. “They are losing tonnage every day, and they were very tight before this happened,” said one industry contact.
Throughout the Midwest and upper Midwest, sources quoted ammonium sulfate in a broad range at $280-$305/st FOB terminals for any available tons to the dealer. One industry source said rumors were circulating that new granular ammonium sulfate pricing from Honeywell would come out at the $325/st FOB or rail-DEL level when the company’s plant returns to production.