LSB Industries Inc. said today that due to an intense lightning storm, its El Dorado, Ark., facility, suffered a complete power outage July 14, 2016, which caused production to be halted. Subsequent restart activities indicated that normal operating parameters had been affected from the outage and repairs were required. Adjustments to El Dorado’s ammonia plant synthesis loop are currently being made and the company expects to restore ammonia production at nameplate capacity during the first week of August.
In addition, LSB said it is undertaking necessary warranty repairs and modifications on its nitric acid plant at El Dorado during the seasonally slow period. The modifications and repairs on heat exchangers and NOX abatement systems are being done to increase efficiency and extend service life. The company expects to complete the activities at the nitric acid plant in late August. Customer shipments are not expected to be interrupted as the facility has a secondary nitric acid plant and the Pryor, Cherokee and Baytown facilities are able to provide required shipments to customers if necessary.
Israel Chemicals Ltd. (ICL) said today that it has signed several contracts to supply an aggregate 700,000 mt of potash to its customers in China. The agreements also include options to purchase additional quantities. The contracts are for delivery during 2016. The selling prices stipulated in the contracts are in line with the recent contract prices in China. The contracts are part of three-year framework agreements between ICL and its Chinese customers. ICL has also agreed to sell potash to India at prices recently negotiated by Belarusian Potash Co.
The BPC-China price was $219/mt CFR. To date, major suppliers, Canpotex and Uralkali have not signed on to sell product to China or India.
Compass Minerals reported a 52 percent drop in second-quarter net income to $6.3 million ($0.18 per diluted share) on sales of $169.5 million from the year-ago $13.2 million ($0.39 per share) and $183.7 million, respectively.
Improved results in the company’s Salt section, somewhat offset a 72 percent decrease in operating earnings in the Plant Nutrition segment where operating earnings were $4.7 million, down from the year-ago $16.8 million.
The average quarterly fertilizer sales price dropped to $651/st from $756/st, while volumes were 74,000 st, down from 85,000 st. Compass announced that it instituted an average $30/st price decrease for SOP products effective July 1, 2016.
Citing current SOP and highway deicing markets, Compass reduced its full-year EPS guidance to $2.60-$2.90 from $3.25-$3.65.
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