OCI Partners LP said April 23 that it has restarted its ammonia and methanol production lines after completing a planned debottlenecking project. The upgrade is expected to increase the facility’s ammonia production capacity by 15 percent from 265,000 mt/y to 305,000 mt/y and its methanol production capacity by 25 percent from 730,000 mt/y to 912,500 mt/y. The ammonia production line has achieved its new, upgraded design capacity while the methanol production line is expected to ramp-up its capacity fully during the next two weeks.
To partially fund the current debottlenecking project costs, the LP has received an additional capital contribution of $60 million from its sponsor, OCI NV, in exchange for 3,502,218 common units priced at $17.132 which represents the 21-trading day volume-weighted average price of the LP’s common units on the New York Stock Exchange ended April 16, 2015. This increases OCI NV’s total unit ownership to 69,497,590 common units from a previous 65,995,372 common units resulting in an ownership 79.88 percent of the total common units outstanding.
The final cost of the project will be announced during the LP’s first quarter earnings announcement on May 11, 2015.