Tag: Dyno Nobel

Sold! Cornerstone Chemical: new private equity owner for urea plant

THIS UPDATE IS ONLY AVAILABLE TO SITE MEMBERS

It's a busy time for mergers and acquisitions in the global ag industry: Dow and DuPont, Syngenta and ChemChina, Bayer and Monsanto. Three deals, worth about a quarter trillion dollars.

It seemed as if there weren't any North American nitrogen assets worth buying or available for sale - except, now, Cornerstone Chemical.

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Waggaman, LA: owner ramps up, EPC books loss

Dyno Nobel's new plant at Waggaman, LA, is producing ammonia above its daily rated capacity. Conversely, total production in 2017 is expected to be closer to 80% of annual capacity, because it is likely to be taken offstream regularly this year while it ramps up.
This article discusses the early performance of the Waggaman ammonia plant, and the cost overruns it saw during construction.

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Waggaman update: on schedule, on budget, expected Q3

It's refreshing to write an update for a plant where construction is on schedule and on budget, which appears to be the case at Dyno Nobel's ammonia brownfield at Waggaman, LA.

Recently, we've seen delays, cost-overruns, and lawsuits aplenty for projects like US Nitrogen at Greenville, TN, OCI at Wever, IA, and LSB Industries at El Dorado, AR.

But Dyno Nobel's parent company, Incitec Pivot, described progress quite differently during this week's earnings call:

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2016 in preview: US ammonia capacity to increase by a third

This will be a transformative year for the ammonia industry. Four world-scale ammonia plants are scheduled to begin production, as well as three smaller plants, a couple of expansions, and a "clean coal" behemoth.

If all these projects start up successfully this year, they will add more than five million tons of ammonia capacity.

The new projects scheduled for 2016 will increase North American capacity by more than a quarter - and, because only one of these projects is in Canada, will increase US capacity by more than a third.

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Market share in North America: with mergers, and without

Two major mergers have been announced in the last seven days - CVR Partners with Rentech, and CF Industries with OCI.

It's fair to say that the competitive landscape for ammonia will soon change, but you could look at both these transactions as companies running fast to stay still.

Any gain in market share caused by each merger is likely to be short-lived, because there are no less than 15 expansion projects already under construction, with more yet to get underway.

Any market share projections that fail to take these expansions into account will be short-sighted, so I've put together some charts ...

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Cheyenne, WY — Dyno Nobel

Ammonia plant: Cheyenne, Wyoming - Dyno Nobel

UPDATED: 07/23/2017 — see Change Log

OWNER: Dyno Nobel (Incitec Pivot Limited)
PROJECT: Ammonium Nitrate plant

SUMMARY STATUS: Operational
In operation since 1965, the Cheyenne plant primarily produces industrial ammonium nitrate, for Dyno Nobel's explosives market. It is currently producing ammonia at record levels, although a 4-6 week turnaround is scheduled for 2H2017. The site has been expanded recently, with additions of a second industrial ammonium nitrate plant and a DEF production unit.

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Waggaman, LA — Dyno Nobel

UPDATED: 07/23/2017 — see Change Log

OWNER: Dyno Nobel LA Ammonia LLC (Incitec Pivot Limited)
PROJECT: Brownfield ammonia plant

SUMMARY STATUS: Operational
The Waggaman ammonia plant started up in 2016. Construction began in December 2013, they held a "dedication ceremony" in late September 2016, and announced "successful completion of the performance testing process" and "take over [of] management and operation" in October 2016. The project claims to have come in on budget, although construction saw major cost overruns. On the site of Cornerstone Chemical's Fortier plant, "WALA" sells its ammonia to Cornerstone and merchant traders, as well as making Dyno Nobel self-sufficient for ammonia in the US. In 2017, Cornerstone was sold to a new owner.

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