Mississippi Phosphates Corp. reports that there were no bids for its assets submitted by the bid deadline on July 24. As a result, no auction will be held July 31, 2015. Phosphate producer Miss Phos is in the midst of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy action before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.

Governor Bobby Jindal and Board Chairman Arunas Laurinaitis of Lithuania-based Investimus Foris announced the company will make a $265 million capital investment to convert an idle biofuels refinery in Grant Parish into an ammonia manufacturing facility.

Investimus Foris is buying assets of the former Vanguard Synfuels refinery in Pollock as the site for its new facility. The company also is negotiating with European and Asian companies to purchase and move ammonia plant components that will be coupled with existing plant infrastructure in Pollock to create the new ammonia facility. The Louisiana refinery had been operated as an ammonia plant before its acquisition by Vanguard Synfuels.

The plant will produce 500,000 tons of ammonia per year for use in agricultural applications. Most of it will be shipped by pipeline to destinations in the northern U.S. The company also is exploring foreign export markets. Construction is expected to start in the second quarter of 2016 and is scheduled to be completed within 26 months, in the third quarter of 2018.

Investimus Foris is affiliated with ICOR, a Lithuania-based conglomerate of companies specializing in manufacturing, energy, facilities management and other areas.

No bomb was found at OCI NV’s Iowa Fertilizer Co. plant under construction in Wever, Iowa, according to local reports. A message that a bomb would go off Tuesday, July 21 at noon, was found in a portable restroom July 20.

The facility was evacuated while authorities searched the site.

The $2 billion facility has not begun production and is not expected to do so until November.

Authorities speculated that the threat could have resulted from a disgruntled employee as there have been layoffs and labor unrest at the facility in recent months.

OCI had not responded to inquiries at press time.

Shares of CF Industries Holdings Inc., Deerfield, Ill., shot up 7.5 percent, according to Bloomberg after a midday report by the Dow Jones that CF may be in merger talks with OCI NV, Amsterdam.

OCI has been flexing its muscle in the U.S. with a major new nitrogen plant expected to come up in Wever, Iowa, later this year.

CF and OCI had not responded to inquiries at the time of this GM Alert.

Ironically, Yara International ASA in recent weeks has been mentioned as a possible suitor for OCI. CF and Yara were in merger talks last year but they fizzled.

After recent expansions OCI Nitrogen will have total Capacity of Ammonia 5.4 mln mt, Urea 3.2 mln mt, UAN 1.78 mln mt while CF will have Ammonia 8.27 mln mt, Urea 5.1 mln mt, UAN 7.5 mln mt. The combined companies would control ~10% of global urea capacity outside China and ~30% of UAN capacity and have a global footprint.

The Trading Corp. of Pakistan called three urea tenders of 50,000 mt each. The tenders close August 17, 18 and 20.

The urea market was expecting the tenders because the Pakistan government had cleared the way for them more than a month ago.

For more details, see the July 20 issue of Green Markets.

Major players have settled third-quarter Tampa sulfur contracts at $137/lt, up $5/lt from the second-quarter close of $132/lt.

A bipartisan group of eight U.S. Representatives on July 16 introduced legislation in the U.S. House that moves to reinforce U.S. sanctions against Belarus. The legislation would designate Belaruskali, the Belarus state-owned potash company, and it’s trading company, Belarusian Potash Co., as Specially Designated Nationals (SDN), making them subject to U.S. sanctions.

U.S. sanctions were first imposed against Belarus in 2006, and the Belneftekhim Concern, a large, state-owned petrochemical conglomerate, was named as an SDN in 2007. U.S. businesses, citizens, and green card holders are prohibited from doing business with sanctioned entities, and until 2014, Belaruskali was part of the Belneftekhim Concern and had ceased exports of potash under the sanctions.

In February 2014, however, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenka’s government performed a corporate restructuring, moving Belaruskali out from under the Belneftekhim umbrella. As a result, Belarus began shipping potash to the U.S., as Green Markets reported earlier this year.

According to industry sources, the “Belarus Democracy and Sanctions Enforcement Act of 2015” aims to crack down on Belaruskali’s evasion of U.S. sanctions and specifically names the Joint Stock Company Belaruskali and the Joint Stock Company Belarusian Potash Company on the list of SDNs.

The bill is co-sponsored by Reps. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.), Ben Lujan (D-N.M.), Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.), Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), Chris Stewart (R-Utah), Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.), Martha Roby (R-Ala.) and Doug Collins (R-Ga.).
Belaruskali has nameplate potash capacity of ~10.7 million mt, which is ~13 percent of global capacity, according to the Green Markets Potash Supply & Demand Model.

LSB Industries Inc. reports that while its El Dorado, Ark., expansion is on schedule, costs are up.  The new nitric acid plant and concentrator are on schedule to be completed and operational by the end of the third quarter of 2015. The 375,000 st/y ammonia plant remains on schedule to be completed and operational in the first quarter of 2016.

The company’s current cost estimate for the EDC expansion is now in the range of $560 million to $575 million, up from the previous estimate of $495 million to $520 million. Based on management’s current project cost estimates and forecast for operating cash flow, at this time LSB does not expect to require additional financing to complete the EDC expansion other than the previously announced financings related to the installation of the cogeneration facility and the ammonia storage tank.

Interoceanic Corp. (IOC) has announced a price increase following its summer fill program for Rentech’s Premium Grade Ammonium Sulfate. After close of business on Friday July 17, 2015 prices will be adjusted up as follows: $285 Midwest river terminals; $285 Minneapolis; $295 inland Midwest terminals; and $305 Northern inland terminals. IOC said to call for railcar pricing.

Four former Yara International ASA executives were convicted in an Oslo court here July 8 of paying bribes in Libya and India, according to the Norwegian press, which reported that former CEO Thorleif Enger was sentenced to three years, former Legal Director Ken Wallace to two and one-half years and former Executive Vice President Daniel Clauw and Tor Holba to two years each.

Enger has already appealed.

Yara itself was not part of the trial. In 2014, Yara notified the Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime (Økokrim) that Yara acknowledged guilt and accepted a corporate fine and confiscation totaling NOK 295 million, reportedly Norway’s largest-ever corporate fine.

The fine of NOK 270 million stemmed from historical irregularities linked to the establishment of Libyan Norwegian Fertilizer Co. (Lifeco), an unrealized project in India, and Yara’s activities in Switzerland. In addition, Økokrim imposed a confiscation of NOK 25 million related to a matter related to earlier phosphate deliveries. The combined penalty was equivalent to about US$48 million.