UPDATED: 05/14/2018 — see Change Log
OWNER: Greenfield Nitrogen LLC
PROJECT: Greenfield ammonia plant
SUMMARY STATUS: Financing Phase
Following years of quiet development, Greenfield Nitrogen launched its financing roadshow in March 2018 and, by mid-May, "has raised about $40 million." If the company succeeds in raising its $103 million equity round, this will be the first plant built with the Linde Ammonia Concept (LAC) technology for regional-scale ammonia production.
The EPC firm working on OCI's world-scale nitrogen complex in Iowa was supposed to hand over the keys to the plant two years ago. While IFCo is now operating and managing the site, the EPC firm is still there, finishing up, and the formal hand-over ("project acceptance") hasn't happened ... despite the fact that OCI held a ribbon-cutting ceremony back in April.
Blame the opossum, who knocked out the power for a while.
"IFC was ready to make it official. The company was at 100 percent operation. It was time for the ribbon cutting."
Well, yes and no.
Yes, Iowa Fertilizer Company held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate its greenfield at Wever. No, Wever is hardly 100% complete: the ammonia plant is operational, but the downstream plants may be months away.
CF Industries announced this morning that its new ammonia and urea plants at Port Neal, IA, "have been successfully commissioned and started-up."
Over the last few weeks, Iowa Fertilizer Company and its parent, OCI NV, have been busy with the commissioning phase of their major greenfield at Wever, IA. However, they've also been restructuring bond payments, which was necessary "to ensure the successful completion of construction and first year of operations."
In the process, we've seen the bond rating downgraded, the IRS launch an examination, disclosures of project costs rising further, and hints at future mergers & acquisitions.
OCI has successfully refinanced the project. They hope to start producing ammonia soon but, if history is any guide, defining "soon" may be difficult.
There's plenty of new news about OCI's Iowa Fertilizer Company and its world-scale greenfield nitrogen plant at Wever, IA.
In the last two weeks, we've had earnings reports both from OCI and from the project's EPC contractor, Orascom, which is OCI's sister company. Plus, we had a response and countersuit in the ongoing lawsuit between Orascom and one of the project's subcontractors.
Updates came in last week from the various entities that I call Orascom, including OCI Partners, with its expansion underway at Beaumont, TX, and OCI NV, which owns the Iowa Fertilizer Company greenfield at Wever, IA.
The Beaumont plant's expansion has been pushed back to 2015: four weeks of turnaround work will now begin in January, "in order to avoid the holiday season," and other more technical reasons. The debottlenecking project's cost has also ticked up by another $20 million. Members will find an updated project summary in my Research Note.
The Wever greenfield is still on schedule for start-up at the end of 2015, but costs have risen by $100 million to a new total of $1.9 billion. Again, a full project summary is available for Members in my Research Note.
UPDATED: 01/01/2016 — see Change Log
OWNER: Green Valley Chemical Corporation
PROJECT: Ammonia plant
SUMMARY STATUS:
In operation since 1966, Green Valley Chemical's Creston plant is the smallest stand-alone commercial ammonia plant in the US.
UPDATED: 10/16/2017 — see Change Log
OWNER: Koch Industries
PROJECT: Ammonia / UAN plant
SUMMARY STATUS:
In operation since 1967. In 2012, Koch Industries announced potential "production enhancements" at this and other sites but, despite completing major expansions at its other sites, there have been no indications of any expansions at Fort Dodge.
UPDATED: 04/17/2016 — see Change Log
OWNER: CF Industries Nitrogen LLC (CF Industries Holdings Inc)
PROJECT: Nitrogen fertilizer complex, brownfield ammonia-urea plant
SUMMARY STATUS: Operational
Port Neal's new ammonia-urea plant started up in December 2016. CF Industries announced the project in late 2012 and began construction in 2013; project costs increased considerably during construction, and start-up was about six-months behind schedule. The new plants are now running at or above capacity.
UPDATED: 11/14/2017 — see Change Log.
OWNER: Iowa Fertilizer Company (OCI NV / Orascom)
PROJECT: Greenfield nitrogen fertilizer plant
SUMMARY STATUS: Operational
OCI announced the start-up of the ammonia plant in April 2017 but, while the site is mechanically complete and all the downstream plants are capable of production above nameplate capacity, the ammonia plant had trouble ramping up and OCI only acknowledged "Provisional Acceptance" of the project in mid-October. Despite OCI's first-mover advantage, the Wever plant is now two years delayed and more than a billion dollars over budget. OCI wanted to do mergers and acquisitions but didn't have much success: it failed to merge with CF Industries in 2016 and failed to buy out its subsidiary, OCI Partners, in 2017.