Company provides update on facilities
LSB Industries Inc. on July 11 gave an update on its El Dorado, Ark., and Pryor, Okla., nitrogen plants that have been undergoing repairs.
A May 15 explosion at the El Dorado facility caused major damage at the DSN 98 percent concentrated nitric acid (DSN) plant and peripheral damage to other plants at that location. On June 5, LSB gave an assessment of damages and its plans to resume production. LSB said it restarted regular nitric acid and ammonium nitrate production as planned, on a partial basis in June, and is on track to increase that production during July and August, as various plants are brought back online, as per the originally announced timetable.
LSB has determined that the repairing the DSN plant is not feasible. It intends to replace the nitric acid production capacity lost by this event with a new nitric acid plant. Engineering is underway to determine the specification for the new acid plant. Before the May 15 event, the DSN plant produced approximately 20 percent of the nitric acid manufactured at the El Dorado facility.
The three other nitric acid plants, which produce approximately 80 percent of the nitric acid at El Dorado in concentrations from 56-63 percent, sustained less damage and are being brought back online. The first of these three has returned to full production, and the other two should restart later this month and August.
Both the high density and low density ammonium nitrate prill plants are ready for full production as acid production continues to be restored. These prill plants are currently operating at less than full capacity due to limited availability of feedstock.
Production at the sulfuric acid plant should resume before year end. Before the May 15, sulfuric acid was approximately 8 percent of the El Dorado facility’s sales.
LSB said all loading and unloading facilities are fully operational.
The temporary nitric acid control room is operational and plans are being prepared for a new permanent control facility.
Repairs to the permanent electrical service and various support facilities are nearing completion.
LSB said it is continuing to work with its insurance carriers and is making good progress.
As for Pryor, LSB said that plant is once again producing UAN. Back in March, the urea plant was taken out of operation to repair a break in the reactor’s stainless steel liner. On April 25, LSB determined that the break could not be repaired, so it decided to replace the liner and announced that the urea plant would be down through the second quarter. The liner replacement is completed and as a result UAN production has resumed. During the time that the urea plant was down, Pryor continued to produce and sell ammonia and downstream products.
The main ammonia plant at the Pryor has been recently producing at approximately 75 percent of 2012 previous operating rates because of problems with the ammonia converter. “Despite the fact that our Pryor facility has been extremely profitable, it has not yet achieved its full potential,” said Jack Golsen, LSB board chairman and CEO. “We have continually had problems sustaining our targeted ammonia production rate from the main ammonia plant at Pryor. We believe this is primarily due to the design of its ammonia converter, which was part of the plant at the time we acquired it. We have decided to replace that converter and expect that to occur during the first quarter of 2013. We will continue to operate the plant during the replacement process. That replacement should allow us to de-bottleneck the production process and finally achieve our targeted production capacity from this ammonia plant.”
“On May 5th we received permits to operate the two smaller ammonia plants at Pryor,” added Golsen. “We are in the process of commissioning those plants. We expect thos