Oklahoma City — LSB Industries Inc. said Dec. 4 that its chemical business’s El Dorado, Ark., facility has signed an agreement with Weatherly Inc. for the licensing, engineering, and procurement of major manufacturing equipment for a new 1,100 ton per day, 65-percent-strength nitric acid plant. The new plant is expected to be operational by mid-2015. In addition, the company is currently negotiating a contract for the purchase of a plant to work in conjunction with the new nitric acid plant that further concentrates a portion of the output up to 98.5 percent strength. The cost of the new nitric acid plant, the nitric acid concentrator plant, and supporting facilities, including construction, is anticipated to total approximately $120 million, a significant portion of which is expected to be paid from insurance proceeds resulting from the May 15, 2012 event that damaged the El Dorado facility. The amount of insurance proceeds is not known at this time. An explosion occurred at the facility in May (GM May 21, p. 1), destroying the existing concentrated acid plant and idling the rest of the complex, including nitric acid and ammonium nitrate production into the summer, while sulfuric acid has remained offline until just recently. LSB said the latter plant’s commencement represents the final phase of repair and production recovery at the facility following the May explosion, other than the construction of the aforementioned new nitric acid plant and acid concentrator plant. “All of the plants at the El Dorado facility are up and running, other than the DSN plant, which is being replaced by the new Weatherly nitric acid plant,” said Jack Golsen, LSB’s board chairman and CEO. “With the addition of a new nitric acid plant and concentrator, we believe that the El Dorado facility will be able to regain its position as a leading merchant marketer of concentrated nitric acid in the United States.” In the meantime, LSB has suffered an explosion limiting production at its Cherokee, Ala., nitrogen facility (GM Nov. 19, p. 1), and its Pryor, Okla., ammonia plant went down in November for unplanned maintenance, with the time being used to install a replacement ammonia converter (GM Nov. 26, p. 9).
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