LSB Industries Inc. on Sept. 28 announced that the ammonia plant at its Pryor, Okla., chemical facility experienced a minor fire and was taken out of service Sept. 23, 2017, to repair damage to some of the plant’s electrical controls, wiring, and piping. The company said none of the company’s employees were injured, there was no damage to the reformer or to other major pieces of equipment, and there was no release of ammonia.
LSB expects the repairs to be completed and ammonia production to resume by the end of October 2017. The company plans to meet customer commitments for pre-sales of products by either shipping from other facilities or by purchasing them from third parties, so the ammonia plant downtime will not result in reductions of UAN or ammonia sales volumes.
Management expects that the EBITDA impact resulting from the repair expenses, the excess cost of purchasing UAN versus producing it, and the reduced absorption of fixed costs will be approximately $1.5-$2.0 million for the third quarter of 2017 and $2.5-$2.75 million for the fourth quarter of 2017.
LSB said it will provide an update on the progress of the repairs and the impacts of the downtime on financial results when the company reports third-quarter 2017 results in late October.