All Posts from December 6, 2016

Grannus names EPC partner

Grannus LLC, Tucson, Ariz., has selected Plant Process Equipment (PPE) as its Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) management company for its regional-scale advanced ammonia plant to be built in Kern County, Calif.

The Grannus plant is expected to operate below all applicable California air quality control standards and will produce 250 st/d, representing approximately 40 percent of California’s agricultural ammonia consumption.

“Plant Process Equipment’s deep experience in the modular design of syngas plants is a perfect fit for our regional-sized California plant. It’s our intent to replicate the California plant design throughout the world to further reduce capital costs and to streamline lead times for delivery,” said Matthew Cox, CEO of Grannus.

Ken Reynaud, PPE’s senior vice president, said, “The Grannus project is right in our wheelhouse, serving Grannus’ desire for a modular design that can be fabricated offsite and delivered anywhere in the world on a very cost-effective basis. The benefit will be ammonia plants that can deliver product on a regional basis at costs competitive with those of world-scale facilities.”

The Grannus plant will be the first ammonia plant built in California in more than 60 years. It will be operational in 2019.

HPS to pursue permitting

Junior phosphate mining company HPS II LLC said Dec. 6 that it is poised to move forward with the permitting phase of its plan to open a new phosphate resource in North Central Florida. The plan includes facilities in both Bradford and Union counties. Production projections for each plant currently forecast approximately 1.2 million st/y of 66-68 BPL (30-31 percent P2O5) wet rock.

HPS II LLC was formed by local families with the purpose of bringing this ore body, which contains approximately 60.9 million st of recoverable high-quality “Bone Valley”-characteristic phosphate rock, into the world market.

There are no plans to build fertilizer production processing facilities.

HPS reports that it has engaged Kleinfelder, an engineering and environmental professional services firm, to oversee the mining permit process.

OCI NV seeks all OCI Partner units

OCI NV, Amsterdam, today said that it has submitted a proposal to the board of directors of OCI Partners LP to acquire all publicly held common units of OCI Partners in exchange for OCI NV shares. OCI currently owns 79.88 percent of issued and outstanding common units of OCI Partners, which has an ammonia plant and methanol plant in Beaumont, Texas.

OCI is proposing an exchange ratio of 0.5200 OCI NV shares for each publicly-held unit of OCI Partners, as part of a transaction that is to be effected through a merger of OCI Partners with a wholly-owned subsidiary of OCI. In exchange, OCI will offer 9.10 million newly issued OCI NV shares, to be admitted to listing on Euronext Amsterdam, representing approximately 4 percent of total OCI shares currently outstanding. The proposed Exchange Ratio represents a value of $7.80 per unit to OCI Partners minority shareholders, or an 8.3 percent premium over the closing price of OCI Partners common units as of Dec. 5, 2016, and a 25.6 percent premium over the 30 trading day average OCI Partners/OCI exchange ratio as of Dec. 5.

The proposed transaction is subject to approval of a definitive agreement by the board of directors of OCI NV, the board of directors of the general partner of OCI Partners and a Conflicts Committee to be established by the OCIP board, and would be subject to customary closing conditions. OCI NV said there can be no assurance that a definitive agreement will be executed or that any transaction will materialize.

“We believe the proposed transaction is attractive to minority investors in OCI Partners who, as new OCI NV shareholders, would have the opportunity to diversify from single-asset equity ownership to a leading global methanol and fertilizer producer,” said Nassef Sawiris, OCI NV CEO. “OCI has significant growth prospects with the start-up of two new world-scale greenfield facilities in the United States: a fertilizer complex in Wever, Iowa, and a methanol plant in Beaumont, Texas, adjacent to the facility owned by OCI Partners. In addition, it allows unitholders to benefit from the significantly better trading liquidity of the OCI NV share compared to OCI Partners. For OCI NV shareholders, the proposed transaction allows for simplification of the group’s corporate structure, greater operational synergies, including the removal of public listing costs and addresses concerns over the attractiveness of Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) as an asset class in an environment of rising interest rates and potential changes in U.S. tax regulations.”