UPDATED: 02/01/2018 — see Change Log

OWNER: Nutrien, formerly PotashCorp
PROJECT: Nitrogen fertilizer plant, expansion[memberful does_not_have_subscription=”1314-ammonia-industry-annual-subscription,1311-ammonia-industry-monthly-subscription,3338-ammonia-industry-30-day-subscription”]

EXISTING PLANT
COST (reported): none given
JOB CREATION (reported): 148 permanent — see Job Openings [LINK]
START-UP DATE (reported): 1955

EXPANSION
COST (reported): $210 million
JOB CREATION (reported): 6 permanent, 1,200 peak construction
START-UP DATE (reported): 2015

CAPACITY	USGS[1]	COMPANY[2]	PERMIT[3]	ADJUSTED[4]
Ammonia	612,000 mtpy	750,000 mtpy	[Membership required]	[Membership required]
Units: stpd, stpy, mtpd, mtpy = short/metric tons per day/year. [1] United States Geological Survey (USGS) Mineral Yearbook, Nitrogen gives capacity in metric tons per year, calculated as “engineering design capacity adjusted for 340 days per year of effective production capability,” rounded to three significant digits. Source: most recent year, Table 4: Domestic Producers of Ammonia, http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/nitrogen/. [2] Nutrien Fact Book 2018. Sources linked below. [3] [Membership required]. Sources: linked below. [4] [Membership required]. See Methodology.

[/memberful]

[memberful does_not_have_subscription=”1314-ammonia-industry-annual-subscription,1311-ammonia-industry-monthly-subscription,3338-ammonia-industry-30-day-subscription”]

[/memberful]

[memberful has_subscription=”1314-ammonia-industry-annual-subscription,1311-ammonia-industry-monthly-subscription,3338-ammonia-industry-30-day-subscription”]

SUMMARY STATUS: Operational
Announced in 2013, PotashCorp’s latest ammonia expansion came online in October 2015 after a 7-week turnaround. The urea expansion came online in 2014. The Lima site has been producing ammonia since 1955. In January 2018, Nutrien was formed through a “merger of equals” between Agrium and PotashCorp that was originally announced in September 2016.

EXISTING PLANT
COST: $19 million, when sold in 1967
JOB CREATION: 148 permanent — see Job Openings [LINK]
START-UP DATE: 1955, 1971, 1996 expansion

EXPANSION
COST: $210 million
JOB CREATION: 6 permanent, 1,200 peak construction
START-UP DATE: October 2015
LIKELIHOOD: Done — see Methodology

CAPACITY	USGS[1]	COMPANY[2]	PERMIT[3]	ADJUSTED[4]
Ammonia	612,000 mtpy	750,000 mtpy GROSS 427,600 mtpy NET	1,790 stpd 485 stpd new 2,275 stpd total	750,000 mtpy GROSS 427,600 mtpy NET
Urea		400,000 mtpy NET		423,656 mtpy GROSS +79,832 mtpy new 400,000 mtpy NET
Nitric Acid			450 stpd	149,005 mtpy
UAN		200,000 mtpy NET		200,000 mtpy NET
Units: stpd, stpy, mtpd, mtpy = short/metric tons per day/year. [1] United States Geological Survey (USGS) Mineral Yearbook, Nitrogen gives capacity in metric tons per year, calculated as “engineering design capacity adjusted for 340 days per year of effective production capability,” rounded to three significant digits. Source: most recent year, Table 4: Domestic Producers of Ammonia, http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/nitrogen/. [2] Nutrien Fact Book 2018 / company reps quoted in local news. Sources linked below. [3] Title V permits, applications, and related documents. Sources: linked below. [4] Adjusted Capacity is in metric tons per year; based on Nutrien’s data and air permit documents. UAN capacity calculated from nitric acid capacity. See Methodology.

FEEDSTOCK: Natural gas
END PRODUCTS: Ammonia, UAN (brandname “URAN”), Urea, Nitric Acid, DEF

RESEARCH NOTES:
In January 2018, Nutrien was formed through a “merger of equals” between Agrium and PotashCorp that was originally announced in September 2016.

PotashCorp had recently expanded the nitrogen capacity at Lima: the urea expansion was completed in 2014, and the ammonia expansion came online in October 2015 after a 7-week turnaround. The entire project, “one of the most comprehensive in the history of the Lima operation,” was estimated to cost $210 million (originally $190 million).

The additional capacity was primarily achieved through the installation of a KBR Reforming Exchanger System (KRES) unit.

The actual scale of the expansion depended on who was talking. PotashCorp originally announced the project as creating capacity additions of 88,000 short tons of ammonia per year and 80,000 short tons of urea per year. In January 2014, during the Q4 2013 earnings call, company reps gave the figure of 110,000 tons of ammonia. PotashCorp’s later publications cited the expansion as being an annual 100,000 metric tons of ammonia, and 73,000 metric tons of urea. Air permit documents specified the ammonia expansion as 485 stpd, or 160,594 mtpy. After the merger, the Nutrien Fact Book 2018 gave the gross ammonia capacity at 750,000 mtpy.

The expansion allowed PotashCorp to “improve Lima’s production flexibility to better respond to shifts in market demand … in order to maximize gross margin,” in part by increasing production of DEF. The expansion also allowed PotashCorp to ship more ammonia to its Aurora, NC, potash facility, where it is upgraded to DAP/MAP, reducing the Aurora plant’s “reliance on higher-cost third-party ammonia.”

The original ammonia plant at Lima was built in 1955 by Standard Oil Company of Ohio, known then as Sohio, adjacent to its much larger oil refinery. The Lima plant is notable as the commercial-scale birthplace, in 1957, of the Sohio Acrylonitrile Process, or ammoxidation, which uses ammonia and oxygen to produce nitriles, an intermediary in the production of many plastics and synthetic fibers.

For a number of decades the ammonia plant was run by Sohio or its subsidiaries, including Solar Nitrogen Corporation (a 50/50 joint venture between Sohio and Atlas Chemical Industries Inc, which was later acquired by ICI), and Vistron Corporation (Sohio’s chemical division from 1966 to 1982).

In 1986, BP, which by then owned 55% of Standard Oil, took control of the management of the company and, in 1987, acquired Standard Oil entirely.

In 1993, BP sold the Lima nitrogen plant to Arcadian Corporation. (BP also sold the licensing rights to the Sohio Acrylonitrile Process to Ineos, which still operates a plant adjacent to Lima nitrogen plants – and which is currently protecting its now $3 billion per year acrylonitrile business by suing China’s Sinopec for “misuse of trade secrets.”)

In 1997, PotashCorp “created PCS Nitrogen by acquiring all outstanding shares of Arcadian Corporation for $563.6M and issuing eight million common shares valued at $573.3M.” At the time, Arcadian had been “the largest producer of nitrogen fertilizer in the Western Hemisphere,” with four nitrogen plants in the US and one in Trinidad & Tobago.

After the 1997 acquisition of Arcadian, PotashCorp was “the world’s largest potash company, the third largest phosphate producer and the second largest nitrogen producer in the world.” Even before the merger with Agrium, the company simply claimed to be “the world’s largest crop nutrient company.”[/memberful]

View larger map with all ammonia plants.

ADDRESS: 2200 Fort Amanda Road, Lima, OH 45804, United States

WEBSITE: https://www.nutrien.com

REGULATORY SOURCES:

• USGS: Minerals Yearbook, Nitrogen [RECENT / ARCHIVE]
• EPA Emissions data: Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Large Facilities: PCS NITROGEN OHIO LP [LINK]
• Risk Management Plan: Right to Know Network: PCS Nitrogen Ohio L.P. [LINK]
• Air Permit documents: Ohio EPA, Electronic Copies of Issued Permits (search Facility ID # 03-02-02-0370) [LINK]
• Ohio EPA draft permit: Installation / modification to increase urea and ammonia production [PDF]
• US Securities and Exchange Commission regulatory filings: EDGAR Search Results, POTASH CORP OF SASKATCHEWAN INC CIK#: 0000855931 [LINK]

NEWS SOURCES:

• 01/02/2018: Nutrien press release: Agrium and PotashCorp Merger Completed Forming Nutrien, a Leader in Global Agriculture [LINK]
• 01/2018: Nutrien Fact Book 2018 [PDF]
• 09/12/2016: Agrium / PotashCorp merger presentation: Creation of a World-Class Integrated Global Supplier of Crop Inputs [PDF]
• 09/12/2016: PotashCorp press release: Agrium and PotashCorp to Combine in Merger of Equals to Create a World-Class Integrated Global Supplier of Crop Inputs [LINK]
• 10/29/2015: Seeking Alpha transcript: PotashCorp of Saskatchewan’s (POT) CEO Jochen Tilk on Q3 2015 Results [LINK]
• 08/17/2015: LimaOhio.com: Potash shutting down temporarily to finish improvements in Lima [LINK]
• 2015: PotashCorp Facility Sheet: Lima [PDF]
• 08/14/2014: LimaOhio.com: PotashCorp announces $190 million expansion project [LINK]
• 01/31/2014: Seeking Alpha transcript: Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan’s CEO Discusses Q4 2013 Results [LINK]
• 12/31/2012: PotashCorp Lima expansion project [LINK]