CF Industries Holdings Inc., Deerfield, Ill., said late day Sept. 9 that it has begun restarting its ammonia plants at the Donaldsonville Complex in Louisiana. It said the startup of urea, nitric acid, and UAN would follow.
CF said shipping will proceed on an as-available basis and it will communicate directly with customers regarding impacts caused by Hurricane Ida. CF shut down all production units at the facility on Saturday, Aug. 28, 2021, as part of its contingency plans for the storm.
Market participants were hopeful that September would see a return to normalcy compared to what one termed, “the chaos that is now New Orleans.” Product availability, particularly for urea, was reported to be very thin for September, with prices having spiked as high as $552/st FOB for NOLA granular urea on Sept. 9. In addition to the plant outages, sources reported major logistics issues in both loading barges and unloading waiting vessels, as well as damaged barges and fears that some had sunk.
Based on the Sept. 9 announcement, the giant CF complex would have been totally offline for approximately 11 days. According to a letter dated Friday, Sept. 3, CF declared force majeure regarding the Donaldsonville product. “Due to these circumstances CF Industries Sales LLC has declared an event of force majeure affecting the production and shipment of product from the CF Donaldsonville, LA nitrogen complex,” it stated.
Industry sources had told Green Markets on Sept. 9 that CF had been loading some products, presumably from storage onto trucks. Citing vessel data, Bloomberg reported that the tugboat Abundance, which is normally connected to the giant (22,000 st) ocean-going ammonia barge Harvest, left Donaldsonville on Sept. 9, presumably on its way to The Mosaic Co.’s phosphate facilities in Florida.
Anhydrous ammonia was released from two CF storage tanks at Donaldsonville as a result of the storm, according to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ). However, a CF spokesman said the issue had been resolved and there had been no off-site impacts.
Koch Nitrogen also reported an ammonia release at a site near the Mississippi. However, the company did not respond to a request for comment.
Major refineries, petrochemical, and wastewater treatment plants also reported spills, with nearly 100 spills and other episodes reported to LDEQ as of Sept. 2, raising concerns among environmentalists and public health officials about toxic discharges.
On Sept. 9, Nutrien Ltd., Saskatoon, told Green Markets that its Geismar, La., fertilizer plant was still in the process of restarting and that it expected it to be back to normal operations within the next week.
As previously reported, Mosaic expects eight to nine weeks to make repairs at its two Louisiana plants (GM Sept. 3, p. 1). In all, it expects to lose some 300,000 mt of production due to the storm, as well as a phosphoric acid tank problem at New Wales, Fla.
No update was available from the Incitec Pivot Ltd./Dyno Nobel ammonia plant at Waggaman, La., however, as previously reported, Cornerstone Chemical Co. (GM Sept. 3, p. 1), also at the complex, lost power during the storm and had to declare force majeure.
Also declaring force majeure on Sept. 3 was Interoceanic Corp (IOC), White Plains, N.Y., which markets ammonium sulfate and ammonium thiosulfate from the PCI Nitrogen plant in Pasadena, Texas. While the Pasadena plant was not damaged, IOC was having trouble finding empty barges to load. The massive damage to NOLA grain terminals was causing loaded grain barges to back up as they were unable to unload, leaving a shortage of available barges for other dry products.
Only two major export grain elevators on the lower Mississippi have returned to action in the past week after Ida barreled through the region, according to a Sept. 10 Bloomberg report that analyzed vessel data. Those were the Louis Dreyfus Commodities LLC’s Port Allen elevator and Archer Daniels Midland’s Destrehan elevator.
No vessels had entered other major facilities owned by ADM, Bunge, Cargill, CHS, or Zen-Noh. There were 97 total bulk carriers on the Lower Mississippi early on Sept. 10 and just 16 were berthed in port, with the majority anchored and waiting to load. The Lower Mississippi sends approximately 59 percent of bulk corn, soybeans, and wheat abroad according to data from the USDA, which inspects the product before shipment.
Only about 20 percent of Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production is back online as of Sept. 8, according to Bloomberg, marking an even slower comeback than in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
More than a week after the Category 4 storm made landfall, about 79 percent of the region’s offshore oil output and 78 percent of gas production remains shut-in, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. By comparison, less than 60 percent of oil production and just 40 percent of gas output was still offline this long after Katrina in 2005.
The offshore oil industry is having a tougher time restarting due to the extensive power outages and damaged infrastructure on land. Refineries and petrochemical plants along the Mississippi River are also facing slow restarts, meaning offshore production platforms would be backed up with oil if they resumed immediately.