Unplanned plant outages and weather-related restrictions to commercial barge traffic were impacting fertilizer availability in the Southern Plains market last week. “It’ll make things pretty tight,” said an industry source on Thursday.
Flood warnings were in effect on March 21-22 in eastern Oklahoma after up to eight inches of rain hit the area earlier in the week. The flood warnings covered all or portions of 11 counties in the state, with flooding reported along portions of the Poteau and Neosho Rivers, two tributaries that feed into the Arkansas River.
Barge traffic on the Arkansas River was slowed last week because of fast currents and high water levels, which had reportedly closed at least one lock and caused problems at docks. Industry sources reported some restrictions to barge traffic at the Port of Catoosa in Tulsa, Okla. Port authorities told Green Markets on March 23 that there were “no major impacts” to the port, but some commercial barge restrictions are likely.
In a statement on March 22, the Corps’ Tulsa District said it “expects there to be an impact to navigation traffic along the McClellan-Kerr Navigation System for approximately the next two weeks due to the amount of flow expected to be coming down the system.” A Corps spokesperson told Green Markets that expected discharges of up to 150,000 cfs into the system will likely require larger tugs to push barges, at least through April 2.
The McClellan-Kerr system originates at the Port of Catoosa and runs southeast through Oklahoma and Arkansas to the Mississippi River, primarily following the Arkansas River, but also following portions of the Verdigris River in Oklahoma and the White River in Arkansas.
The barge restrictions were not the only development impacting fertilizer availability in the region. LSB Industries Inc. announced that its Pryor, Okla., facility was shut down on March 15 for unplanned maintenance.
The company said plant personnel identified excess heat in areas of a high temperature, large diameter pipe in the ammonia plant. As a precautionary measure, LSB said ammonia production was shut down while the pipe is removed and the cause of the excess heat determined and repaired.
LSB confirmed that maintenance has also been underway on the Pryor urea plant for several weeks, during which the facility has not produced UAN but has been producing and selling ammonia directly into the fertilizer market. LSB expects to resume ammonia and UAN production at Pryor before March 31, but said it would announce when production of both products is back online.
LSB estimates that the effect of the ammonia plant and the urea plant maintenance outages in March will result in approximately $4 million less operating income than otherwise would have been expected.
Earlier this month (GM March 19, p. 1), Koch Fertilizer LLC and CF Industries notified customers that urea loading had been suspended at Koch’s Enid, Okla., plant, and UAN loading was suspended at CF’s Woodward, Okla., plant. CF alerted customers three days later on March 12 that UAN loading had resumed at Woodward, but supplies were on allocation. Industry sources said urea loading had resumed at Enid as well, though that was not confirmed by Koch.