Australia’s largest ammonia plant in the Pilbara, north of Western Australia, is expected to return to operation within a month, following a shutdown caused by a power surge in March.
Explosives manufacturer Orica said in a supply update on April 16 that it expects the Yara-operated facility to be back online within weeks, earlier than initial estimates of up to two months.
The plant is owned by Norwegian company Yara and produces about 850,000 tonnes of ammonia each year.
A Yara spokesperson previously said the company was working to restart the facility as quickly as possible, with early estimates suggesting it could take up to two months.
The shutdown was confirmed to The Epoch Times by Orica, which is a half-owner of an adjacent plant that relies on about 140,000 tonnes of ammonia a year from the plant to produce technical ammonium nitrate (TAN), a key input for Western Australia’s mining sector.
Orica said it is managing the outage through existing inventory and its global supply network.
The remainder of the plant’s output is supplied to domestic and international customers, many of whom use it to produce urea fertiliser. Australia imported 1.2 million tonnes of urea in April and May last year.
Ammonium nitrate is also used in mining to blast rock for iron ore and other exports.
Western Australia’s second-largest ammonia plant, operated by CSBP near Perth, produces about 255,000 tonnes a year and uses both local and imported ammonia to manufacture ammonium nitrate for fertiliser and explosives.
Orica said its east coast ammonia and ammonium nitrate plants have resumed operations following the restart of the Kooragang Island facility in New South Wales on April 1.
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