Agrium Inc. alerted customers on April 2 that its Carseland, Alberta, manufacturing facility has experienced a failure of the high pressure boiler feedwater supply pumps, resulting in the shutdown of ammonia and urea operations at the site.
Agrium said the equipment failure constitutes an event of Force Majeure, and that it will not be able to fully perform its product supply obligations for urea, ammonia, and ESN “for approximately 8 weeks until the equipment can be repaired or replaced.” Agrium provided a lengthy list of supply contracts that will be impacted by the declaration.
Agrium gave no other details on the extent of the damage, saying only that the equipment failure occurred due to circumstances beyond its “reasonable control.” Agrium earlier on April 2 had reported that the Carseland nitrogen facility had experienced a failure in the auxiliary boiler on March 22, resulting in an unplanned shutdown that would lower product availability by approximately 100,000 mt for urea and 20,000 mt for ammonia during the second quarter. Agrium said then that repairs on the boiler were expected to be complete by the second half of May 2014.
Agrium in 2012 put Carseland production capacity at 680,000 mt/y for urea, with ammonia production rated at 535,000 mt/y gross and 135,000 mt/y net.