Toronto-based Itafos notified customers late on Feb. 18 that a previously announced force majeure event on super phosphoric acid (SPA) shipments from its Itafos Conda operation in Idaho has now ended.
“During the month of December 2020 and early January 2021, Itafos shipped all SPA orders which were initially contracted for shipment in October and November 2020. In January 2021, Itafos resumed shipping based on a revised schedule,” the company said. “We appreciate all the efforts and understanding from our customers during this disruption.”
Itafos alerted customers of the force majeure in early December (GM Dec. 18, 2020), noting that a “disruption of exceptional scale and duration in sulfuric acid supply” had occurred from Rio Tinto’s Kennecott mine in Utah, Itafos’ primary supplier. Although Rio Tinto resumed regular shipments of sulfuric acid on Oct. 30, 2020, after an extended smelter shutdown at Kennecott, Itafos said the lengthy disruption “significantly impacted” its ability to maintain overall production rates at the Conda facility.
Itafos reported in December that it had tried to mitigate the shortfall by procuring replacement sulfuric acid volumes from other third-party suppliers and scheduling maintenance activities during times of lower throughput. The backlog in SPA shipments to Itafos customers, however, forced the company to state that it would not be able to satisfy all contracted SPA quantities during the 2020/21 acid year.