Agrium continues to plan for the potential restart of its ammonia-urea plant in Kenai, Alaska: its draft water permit is now entering a 30-day public comment period.
However, the fact sheet for the draft permit contains one particularly interesting chart, which follows below, to illustrate the water flows throughout the ammonia-urea plant. In an industry that holds its data close, this is a refreshingly detailed flow chart.
Over the last few years, Agrium has said very little about the potential restart of its export oriented ammonia-urea plant in Kenai, AK, except that we shouldn't expect any "imminent" announcements.
However, this week's hearings on a tax incentive bill by the Alaska Senate Finance Committee are accompanied by a raft of new documents, showing the project is very much still on the table - it just needs gas (financial incentives would be nice, too).
[Update 03/18/2016: Alaska passed Agrium's tax incentive bill yesterday.]
"The key question with Kenai is, is there enough gas to restart the plant ... If we were able to bring that plant up, that will be by far the best capacity expansion we've ever done."
Chuck Magro, Agrium's new CEO, talked about the potential expansion at Borger, Texas, and restart at Kenai, Alaska, during the discussion that followed his presentation at CIBC's 17th Annual Whistler Institutional Investor Conference on Wednesday, January 22nd ...
UPDATED: 02/27/2018 — see Change Log
OWNER: NutrienPROJECT: Idle plant, Ammonia-urea restart
SUMMARY STATUS: Planning Phase
Nutrien continues to evaluate whether to restart one of the two ammonia-urea lines at its export-oriented plant in Alaska. Originally, in 2013, Agrium had intended to make its investment decision by early 2015. The project received its first environmental permits in 2015 and continued permitting in 2016. It garnered state tax incentives in 2016 and 2017, with local incentives under discussion in 2018. Agrium's decision to restart the plant was, however, totally dependent on new availability of natural gas from the nearby Cook Inlet, which has not yet materialized. In January 2018, Nutrien was formed through a "merger of equals" between Agrium and PotashCorp that was originally announced in September 2016.