A nighttime fire at Dakota Gasification’s anhydrous ammonia facility at the Great Plains Synfuels plant near Beulah, N.D., on April 14 has left the ammonia plant temporarily idled during the busy spring planting season.
Company Spokesman Daryl Hill told Green Markets that the fire alarm at the facility went off at 11:30 p.m. Saturday. The fire, which was concentrated in the front-end portion of the ammonia unit, was quickly extinguished by Dakota Gasification’s own fire crew. Hill said no rural or city fire departments were involved in the effort.
There were very few employees in the plant at the time of the blaze given the late shift, and no injuries were reported as a result of the fire. The blaze also resulted in no ammonia release at the site.
Hill said there were no estimates yet on what caused the blaze, how much damage the facility sustained, or how long it will be offline. “It will take awhile to get it opened up and determine exactly what happened,” he said. “It’s a pretty big vessel to look at, so it will take some time to check everything out.”
Hill acknowledged that the outage comes at an inopportune time during spring planting, when ammonia usage on corn ground is heavy. “This isn’t the best time of year for this to happen,” he said, but he added that the company is “moving as fast as we can” to repair the damage and return the plant to operation.
At capacity, the ammonia plant at Beulah produces 1,100 st/day, or some 400,000 st/year, and the facility was producing ammonia at full rates when the fire broke out. The facility’s gasification plant was unaffected by the fire and continued operation last week. Hill said the production of ammonium sulfate at Beulah, which uses a flue gas desulfurization system, was also unaffected and continued operation.
Earlier in April, Dakota Gasification reported that foundation work was underway on a new 30,000-gallon anhydrous ammonia storage tank at the Beulah plant. The company first announced plans for the tank last December (GM Dec. 12, 2011), saying it will double ammonia storage capacity at the site.
Contractors broke ground on the $38 million project on March 21, with the new tank located next to the existing 30,000 gallon storage tank on the south side of the plant. Tank construction is expected to be complete by October, with project completion scheduled for early 2013.
“The geo piers are finished, and foundation work is in progress,” said Matt Miller, project manager. The tank’s dike wall is being raised about 1.5 feet and is about one-third complete, the company reported, but driving on the dike wall is no longer permitted until construction is complete. Miller said most of the materials are purchased to begin fabricating the steel plates for the new tank, and the glycol skid, tie-in points, and flare recommendations are currently being reviewed. The 60-percent design review for the project is scheduled for May 3.
“The additional storage will help the plant benefit from better anhydrous ammonia margins available throughout the year,” the company said on April 5. “Ammonia sales and markets are the best they’ve been in many years.”
Back in December, Dakota Gasification also confirmed that it was conducting a pre-front-end engineering and design (FEED) study for building a urea production facility adjacent to the Synfuels plant in Beulah. The pre-FEED study was expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2012, and will give the company a much firmer cost estimate so it can determine whether to proceed with the urea plant.
Steven Liebelt, marketing manager for Dakota Gas, told Green Markets on April 19 that the results of the pre-FEED were not yet available.