A fire reported at Uralkali’s Solikamsk potash mine in the Perm Region has been extinguished, according to an Oct. 16 report by the Prime news agency. Reportedly, plastic pipe caught fire. The company said no one was hurt during the incident and some 287 workers were brought to the surface. Operations are expected to resume in the near future.
As of Oct. 16, the Ohio River is now open at Lock & Dam 52, according to the Waterways Council Inc. The river reopened on Oct. 14 after it had been closed for nearly a week due to rising river stages that exceeded the maximum locking stage of 20.7 feet. Precipitation from Hurricane Nate prompted the rising river levels and closure, but L&D 52 was closed from Sept. 6-14 due to an unscheduled maintenance outage at the 89-year-old facility.
As of Oct. 16, there were 58 vessels with 658 barges waiting to transit L&D 52. This backup is over roughly a 20-mile stretch of river.
LSB Industries Inc.’s El Dorado, Ark., ammonia plant is down but is expected to be back up by Oct. 23, according to the company. LSB said the plant was taken down Oct. 3 to make mechanical repairs to the burner refractory system on the boiler. While these repairs were completed Oct. 8, the company determined that repairs on a process heat exchanger were necessary. As a result, it opted to keep the plant down to complete those repairs.
LSB expects to meet all customer commitments for sales in the fourth quarter of 2017 and estimates that the EBITDA impact resulting from the repair expenses and the reduced absorption of fixed costs related to the collective period of downtime will be approximately $2.5 million to $3.0 for the fourth quarter of 2017.
LSB said it will provide an update on the progress of the repairs at El Dorado and earlier announced Pryor repairs and the impacts of the downtime on financial results when the company reports third quarter 2017 results in late October.
