LSB Industries Inc. said Oct. 5 that planned and unexpected turnarounds during the third quarter will negatively impact EBITDA by some $25-$26.5 million. The turnarounds occurred at three plants, Cherokee, Ala., Pryor, Okla., and El Dorado, Ark.

At Cherokee, a scheduled bi-annual turnaround was completed Aug. 19, however, during startup a head gasket failure required repairs, reducing ammonia capacity to 340 st/d. It returned to nameplate capacity of 510 st/d Sept. 22. The impact on EBITDA was $4.0-$4.5 million.

The Pryor plant went down for a planned turnaround Aug. 26 and the company opted to keep it down longer for additional work on the ammonia and urea plants. As a result, the ammonia and nitric acid plants are now not due up until Oct. 10 and urea Oct. 15. EBITDA is expected to be impacted by $7-$7.5 million.

The El Dorado plant returned to production July 31 after being down two weeks due to a lightning strike. However, the ammonia plant was taken down for a total of 18 days over the course of the third quarter to address heat exchanger tube leaks and to make modifications to the process vent system design to improve safety and reliability. The ammonia plant has now had continuous operation since Sept. 22. EBITDA impact is put at $14-$14.5 million.

Despite the unplanned downtime, LSB was able to satisfy customer commitments during the third quarter by utilizing product from inventory. It said this inventory would have otherwise been sold during the fourth quarter of 2016. Management believes the impact to fourth quarter 2016 EBITDA resulting from lower sales from lower beginning inventory, reduced production, related lost fixed cost absorption and repair expense will be in the range of $5-$5.5 million.

LSB has also revised its previously disclosed outlook for full year 2016 Chemical Business sales volumes.

Incitec Pivot Ltd. reported Sept. 29 that as of the end of the third-quarter 2016, construction of its ammonia plant in Waggaman, La., is complete. It said the plant is at an advanced stage of commissioning and the performance testing process is under way. IPL said the project remains within the original budget of US$850 million. Ground was broken on the 800,000 mt/y ammonia plant on Aug. 5, 2013 (GM Aug. 12, 2013).

Ronald P. Stanton, 88, chairman emeritus of Trammo Inc., died at home on Sept. 26, 2016.

Born in Wiesbaden, Germany, and arriving in the U.S. at the age of 9, he had a long and successful career as a commodity trader. After military service during the Korean War, he started working as a trader under Henry Leir as a trainee with International Ore and Minerals in New York, later becoming head of its fertilizer trading division. After Interore was acquired by Occidental Petroleum, he worked under Armand Hammer trading fertilizers.

Stanton left Occidental in 1965 and founded Transammonia, Inc. (now called Trammo Inc.) which in recent years has been the largest privately held company in the New York area. He and one assistant first started trading in ammonia. Eventually he expanded the company’s activities to all fertilizer products and began to open offices all over the world.

Trammo now has 33 offices and 500 employees. The company eventually added other trading products including liquefied petroleum gases, petrochemicals, coal, sulfuric acid, and others.

Stanton served in important roles in The Fertilizer Institute and IFA.

“Ronald was certainly one of the leaders in our industry,” said Trammo’s current CEO Henk van Dalfsen. “The Trammo family is saddened by his passing. We have enormous respect for Ronald as a businessman with an innate understanding of markets and an amazing feel for trading. We will always remember the passion and brilliance with which he led our company for many decades.”

Richardson International Ltd., Winnipeg, today announced the expansion of Richardson Pioneer retail crop input network across Western Canada. Richardson plans to begin construction on the first three new crop inputs centres in Saskatchewan this fall and will be announcing additional new builds across the Prairies.

Richardson Pioneer’s newest crop inputs facilities will be located in Pasqua, near Moose Jaw; Elrose; and at Wakaw, Sask. While Pasqua and Elrose are brand new locations for Richardson Pioneer, the new crop inputs centre in Wakaw will replace Richardson Pioneer’s current facility at that location.

The three new crop inputs sites will each have high-speed fertilizer blending capabilities, modern offices and a 6,000-square-foot, AWSA-certified warehouse. Construction is expected to begin this fall with the intention to have all three new facilities fully operational by later 2017.

A major sinkhole has developed at The Mosaic Co.’s phosphogypsum stack at its Mulberry location, according to local press reports. The reports cited Mosaic as saying some 215 million gallons of slightly radioactive water containing phosphoric acid has gone into the Floridan Aquifer. However, Mosaic believes much of the water has been retrieved by pumping it back into a Mosaic recovery well.

Vale SA and the Argentine province of Mendoza have announced a plan for Vale’s Rio Colorado potash project which was suspended in 2013, according to Bloomberg. Vale and Argentine officials announced the agreement at an investment forum in Buenos Aires Sept. 14.

The Argentine Mining Ministry is expected to conduct a six-month feasibility study into the potential production of 1.4 million mt/y. In addition, Argentina, Mendoza and Vale will all seek out investors for the project. Should none be found, the agreement can be terminated.

Vale had announced talks with the government earlier this year. The company is heavily in debt and is seeking to shed non-core assets.

Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund, Toronto, said Sept. 14 that on Sept. 6 it made a proposal to acquire Calgary-based Canexus Corp. for C$1.45 per common share in cash, which it said was an approximate 18 percent premium to the Sept. 13 closing price of Canexus common shares of $1.23.

On Sept. 12, Canexus rejected Chemtrade’s proposal without engaging in any discussions with Chemtrade, and subsequently announced its intention to complete a $75 million note offering on Sept. 13, 2016. Chemtrade said the note offering, if completed, includes terms that would negatively impact Canexus shareholder value on an acquisition of Canexus.

Canexus produces sodium chlorate and chlor-alkali products largely for the pulp and paper and water treatment industries. It has four plants in Canada and two at one site in Brazil.

Agrium Inc. and Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. today announced that they have agreed to combine in a merger of equals to create a world-class integrated global supplier of crop inputs.

A new parent company, to be named later, will be formed to own both companies. PotashCorp shareholders will receive 0.400 common shares of the new company for each common share of PotashCorp they own, and Agrium shareholders will receive 2.230 common shares of the new company for each common share of Agrium they own. The exchange ratios represent the exchange ratios of the two companies at market close on the NYSE on August 29, 2016 the last trading day prior to when the companies announced that they were in preliminary discussions regarding a merger of equals, which is consistent with the approximate 10 day and 60 day volume weighted average prices through that date. Following the close of the transaction, PotashCorp shareholders will own approximately 52 percent of the new company, and Agrium shareholders will own approximately 48 percent on a fully diluted basis.

On a 2015 pro forma basis, the new company would have had net revenue of approximately US$20.6 billion and EBITDA of US$4.7 billion before synergies.

The combination is expected to generate up to US$500 million of annual operating synergies primarily from distribution and retail integration, production and SG&A optimization, and procurement.

Upon closing of the transaction, Jochen Tilk will serve as executive chairman, and Chuck Magro will serve as CEO, both reporting to the new board of directors. Wayne Brownlee will serve as CFO, and Steve Douglas will serve as chief integration officer.

The new company will remain committed to Canpotex.

Canadian taxable resident shareholders will be able to elect such that they receive shares in the new company free of Canadian income taxes, and other shareholders will generally not be subject to Canadian income tax. It is expected that U.S. resident shareholders will generally receive shares in the new company on a tax-deferred basis for U.S. federal income tax ‎purposes.

The transaction will be implemented by way of a plan of arrangement under the Canada Business Corporations Act. It is expected to close during mid-2017, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including receipt of regulatory approvals, Canadian court approval, and approval by the shareholders of both companies.

Stefan Borgas has resigned as CEO at Israel Chemicals Ltd.  His letter of resignation was accepted on Thursday night by the ICL board of directors and follows months of reported tension between Borgas and the majority shareholder of ICL, Idan Ofer. Borgas served in the post four years and was the first non-Israeli to hold the position. Analysts who follow the company say that the writing was on the wall and Borgas’ resignation was expected.

In his statement, Borgas said he had successfully led the company for four dramatic years in the commodity markets and the time had come to return to his European base.

CF Industries Holdings Inc. today announced that its board of directors has adopted a one-year tax benefits preservation plan designed to preserve the company’s ability to utilize its net operating losses and certain other tax assets. The company estimates that it will generate a federal tax net operating loss in excess of $2 billion in 2016, arising principally from accelerated depreciation on the company’s capacity expansion projects.

CF said the plan is similar to plans adopted by other public companies with significant tax attributes, and was not adopted in response to any specific takeover threat or accumulation of the company’s stock.

It said the purpose of the plan is to preserve the company’s ability to use its tax assets to offset taxable income, which would be substantially limited if the company experienced an “ownership change” as defined under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code and related Internal Revenue Service pronouncements. In general, an ownership change would occur if the company’s “5-percent shareholders,” as defined under Section 382, collectively increase their ownership in the company by more than 50 percentage points during the relevant testing period.

Under the plan, the company is issuing one right for each share of its common stock outstanding at the close of business on September 16, 2016. The rights are not taxable to stockholders. Stockholders are not required to take any action to receive the rights. The rights will expire on the earliest of (i) the close of business on September 5, 2017, (ii) the time at which the rights are redeemed or exchanged under the plan, and (iii) the time at which the board determines that the plan is no longer necessary or desirable for the preservation of the tax assets.

Pursuant to the plan, if a shareholder (or group) becomes a 5-percent shareholder after adoption of the plan without meeting certain customary exceptions, the rights would become exercisable and entitle stockholders (other than the 5-percent shareholder or group) to purchase additional shares of CF at a significant discount, resulting in significant dilution in the economic interest and voting power of the 5-percent shareholder or group. 5-percent shareholders existing at the time of adoption of the plan are grandfathered and will only cause the rights to distribute and become exercisable if they acquire an additional 1 percent of the company’s outstanding shares. Under the plan, the board has the discretion to exempt certain transactions and persons whose acquisitions of the company’s common stock is determined by the board not to impair the availability of the company’s tax assets.