LSB Industries Inc. said May 17 that its new 375,000 st/d anhydrous ammonia plant at its El Dorado, Ark., facility is operational and ammonia production is now underway. The company expects to be selling ammonia into the pipeline by the end of May. The plant will gradually ramp up production volume over the next two months and is expected to reach full capacity by the beginning of the third quarter of 2016.
Phibro LLC, Stamford, Conn., which recently re-entered the fertilizer business (GM Jan. 29, p. 17), has acquired an idled coal-gasification plant from Wabash Valley Power Association near West Terre Haute, Ind., with plans to upgrade the facility to a petcoke-based anhydrous ammonia plant, according to a Bloomberg News interview with Phibro CEO Simon Greenshields. The company is expected to invest some $450 million to make the upgrade. Phibro and Wabash had not responded to inquiries at the time of this alert.
