Swift Enters Diammonium Phosphate Market New 150,000 ton-per-year unit, due this summer, aims at growing market for high-analysis fertilizers Swift & Co. will soon be offering diammonium phosphate (DAP) to its fertilizer customers. Latest to join the growing list of DAP producers, Swift is building a new unit to make the high-analysis fertilizer at its Harvey, La., facilities. The unit is slated to go on stream early this summer. The new plant will have a capacity of 150,000 tons per year. Swift will use wet-process phosphoric acid in its process, ship it to Harvey via barge or rail from its Bartow, Fla., phosphoric acid plant. Ammonia will be obtained from a Louisiana supplier. Swift's goal is a substantial slice of the burgeoning DAP market, currently growing by 20 to 2 5 % a year. In recent years DAP has become important as a starter fertilizer and in formulating mixed starters. But it is not new. Victor Chemical started producing limited amounts of pure DAP ( 2 1 % nitrogen and 5 3 % phosphorus as P 2 0 5 ) in 1921. However, it wasn't really introduced as a commercial fertilizer until 1955, when the Tennessee Valley Authority began offering it on an educational basis. TVA's educational efforts were necessary for two reasons. For one, potential users weren't familiar with DAP's advantages. The fertilizer can be: • Directly applied to crop land which doesn't need potash. • Blended with other granular materials to make any plant food ratio desired. • Used to formulate extremely highanalysis, wet-mix granular grades. Secondly, farmers were used to lower-analysis, lower-cost mixed fertilizers. To compete with these, producers now modify DAP to give 1648-0 and 18-46-0 products containing 64% plant food. DAP producers can use either electric-furnace or wet-process phosphoric acid to make the fertilizer. Phosphorus from the electric furnace reduction method gives high-concentration phosphoric acid, which is used to produce the 21-53-0 grade. Wetprocess acid, the more widely used, goes into the making of 16-48-0 and 18-46-0 grades. 30
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1962
More Producers. DAP consumption has climbed steadily since 1955, and more and more producers are coming on the scene. As one producer put it, "Everybody seems to be getting into DAP." A prime phosphate region, the Florida area has witnessed much of this growth. Virginia-Carolina Chemical, for instance, began producing 18-46-0 at its Nichols, Fla., plant last year. Capacity of the unit is 100,000 tons per year. V-C has its own phosphate plant, buys ammonia from Tennessee Corp.'s U.S. Phosphoric Products Division in Tampa. U.S. Phosphoric also makes DAP at Tampa. Expanded last year, its plant now has a capacity of 225,000 tons per year. Also on stream last year was International Minerals' 120,000 ton-peryear DAP unit at Bartow, Fla. IMC also has its own phosphate, buys am-
monia from several suppliers. In addition to U.S. Phosphoric, other southeastern ammonia producers include Escambia Chemical at Pace, Fla., and Southern Nitrogen at Savannah, Ga. Armour Agricultural Chemical is building an ammonia plant near Cherokee, Ala., and expects it to be operating this summer. Late last year, too, Olin Mathieson began making 18-46-0 grade DAP at its high-analysis fertilizer plant at Pasadena, Tex. The spate of new production activity has carried over into 1962. National Phosphate began making DAP at Marseilles, 111., this month. Within the past few weeks, U.S. Industrial Chemicals' DAP plant has gone on stream at Danville, 111. Armour plans to make the fertilizer at its new Cherokee, Ala., plant. Armour will obtain phosphoric acid from a plant it now has under construction in Polk County, Fla. Even with all of the new plants now coming on stream, capacity figures are still somewhat meaningless. A lot of the producers make DAP on equipment idled by the off-season and store
LIST OF DAP PRODUCERS IS GROWING FAST COMPANY
Armour Agricultural Chemical Coastal Chemical Colorado Fuel & Iron W. R. Grace Farmers Chemical Ford Motor International Minerals Kaiser Steel National Phosphate Olin Mathieson John Deere Chemical Ortho Division, California Chemical Shell Chemical Smith-Douglass Co. Southwestern Agrochemical Swift & Co. Tennessee Valley Authority USI Chemicals U.S. Phosphoric Products Division, Tennessee Corp. Victor Chemical Virginia-Carolina Chemical Western Phosphates
PLANT LOCATION
ON STREAM
Cherokee, Ala. Pascagoula, Miss. Pueblo, Colo. Bartow, Fla. Joplin, Mo. Joplin, Mo. Dearborn, Mich. Bartow, Fla. Fontana, Calif. Marseilles, III. Pasadena, Tex. Tulsa, Okla. Fort Madison, Iowa Kennewick, Wash. Pittsburg, Calif. Texas City, Tex. Chandler, Ariz. Harvey, La.
1962 1959 1954 1960 1959 1954 1956 1961 1955 1962 1961 1957 1961 1959 1956 1958 1958 1962
Wilson Dam, Ala. Danville, III.
1955 1962
Tampa, Fla. Chicago Heights, III. Nichols, Fla. Garfield, Utah
1958 1921 1961 1958
COATING FORMULATORS: How SheU's new PENToXONE* and PENToXOL* solvents can save money, improve formulations and eliminate the need for specialty high boilers and PENT Sboiling oXOL are unusually active high solvents. HELL'S PENTOXONE
Together, they constitute a vir tually complete high boiler inven tory. Below is solubility data for 30 im portant resins in PENToXONE and PENToXOL solvents. With acrylics, nitrocellulose and alky is, these new Shell solvents can
improve your formulations. With vinyls, PENToXONE lowers solvent cost and improves odor. With thermosetting acrylics, epoxies and cellulose acetate butyrate, both PENToXONE and PENT oXOL give excellent film properties. In urethane systems, PENT oXONE solvent has low isocyanate reactivity, eliminates need for pre mium priced upgraded solvents.
Solubility of resins 1 in Shell's PENToXONE and PENToXOL solvents.
In polyvinyl hutyral lacquers, PENToXOL can lower solvent cost by 11 φ per gallon and almost double water resistance. If you'd like to receive samples, plus technical bulletins on all of these applications, write any of Shell's nine Industrial Chemical Division Offices, or directly to Shell Chemical Company, 110 West 51 Street, New York 20, Ν. Υ.
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BRIEFS Colonial Pipeline Co. has been organized by nine oil companies to build a 1600-mile pipeline to haul more than 600,000 barrels per day of refined petroleum products from the Texas Gulf Coast to Staten Island, N.Y. The project will cost about $350 million. Construction will start this fall; completion is slated for about one year later. The companies owning Colonial are: American Oil, Cities Service, Continental Oil, Gulf Oil, Phillips Petroleum, Pure Oil, Sinclair Pipe Line, Socony Mobil, and Texaco.
PLANT PLANNERS. Swift agricultural chemical division executives (left to right) M. Dwight Sanders, director of research and development; Wayne P. Dean, general manager; and David J. Raden, assistant general superintendent, check plans for new DAP unit Swift is building at Harvey, La. Plant is one of several DAP units on stream this year and last to meet growing fertilizer demand
it for seasonal use. The market picture, though, is a different matter altogether. After a rather slow start, the demand for DAP is now picking up steam. Consumption of all grades for the 1959-60 season, for example, was about 450,000 tons. Last season it rose to about 600,000 tons. And this year the fertilizer should chalk u p sales of close to 725,000 tons. Prices have been stable, at least east of the Rockies, with the current quotation for 1 6 48-0 and 18-46-0 grades at $77.50 per ton, f.o.b. Florida. Midway to Market. Swift's Harvey plant is located across the Mississippi River from New Orleans and close to the Intracoastal Canal. Swift studied a number of possible sites—including Bartow—for making DAP, finally picked Harvey for a number of reasons. One big factor is low cost ammonia available in Louisiana, which has the cheapest natural gas in the country. Most DAP producers have built their plants close to a phosphate instead of an ammonia source. Thus, they are faced with pipeline and amortization costs. Another advantage of the Harvey site is that Swift can use much of the existing equipment and storage facilities for DAP. The company has been producing single superphosphate at Harvey for 50 years and making a number of granular mixed fertilizers 32
C&EN
MARCH
26, 1962
there for the past 10 years. So all told, selection of Harvey meant an investment cost one third lower than at the possible Florida sites, according to Wayne P. Dean, general manager of Swift's Agrichem Division. Harvey's biggest advantage, though, is its strategic location. It is readily accessible by both barge and rail. Harvey is midway between the Florida phosphate fields and the largest fertilizer-consuming areas—Texas, the Midwest, and the Great Plains. And with a plant on the Mississippi River near the Intracoastal Canal, Swift can barge DAP to most of these areas. Swift will use the new unit to make mixed fertilizers during the peak fertilizer season (about four months out of the year), make 16-48-0 and 18-46-0 grades of DAP the rest of the time. Capacity for mixed fertilizer will be 40 to 50 tons per hour. Most of the DAP will be marketed for direct application and to blenders who want a concentrated source of phosphate and nitrogen. Some will also go to granulators for formulating very-high-analysis fertilizer, says Mr. Dean. Up to now, all of the Bartow plant's phosphoric acid output has gone into the manufacture of triple superphosphates. Now, about 2 5 % will be used at Harvey for DAP, 2 5 % will go to granulators, and 50% will be consumed at Bartow.
Du Pont will change the name of its polychemicals department to the plastics department, effective April 1. The change, in name only and not in products or personnel, is being made to reflect more accurately the department's principal business interest.
Navaco Co., a division of Howe Sound, has started to make a line of rigid vinyl building panels, using a process developed by National Rubber Machinery Co. and B. F. Goodrich Chemical. Navaco, with headquarters in Dallas, will use BFG's Geon 82304, developed specifically for rigid vinyls.
NEW FACILITIES Bethlehem Steel has a new coal tar distillation plant in operation at its Sparrows Point (Baltimore), Md., plant (C&EN, Feb. 27, 1961, page 17). It can handle up to 50 million gallons of coal tar a year and yield up to 42 million pounds of crude naphthalene a year, which will be processed by Allied Chemical at Philadelphia.
Air Reduction will spend $5.5 million to expand the St. Marys, Pa., plant of its recently acquired subsidiary, Speer Carbon Co. The plant makes carbon brushes, plates, rods, and other carbon specialties.
Gulf Oil will start to build its planned olefin plant (C&EN, Aug. 7, 1961, page 19) near Houston, Tex., in less than 60 days and expects it to be on stream by mid-1963. Stone & Webster Engineering has the construction contract. Initially, the plant will produce 400 million pounds per year of
ethylene. Gulf also plans to put up a propylene plant on the same site. Feedstocks will come from Gulf's west Texas facilities by pipeline. Shell Chemical will expand urea ca pacity at its Ventura, Calif., plant by about 50% to more than 75,000 tons a year. Capacity of the ammonia unit, now producing about 78,000 tons a year, will also be increased to balance out Shell's requirements. The expan sion is to be completed by fall. Baker Perkins, Inc., has set up a bakery equipment demonstration lab at its Saginaw, Mich., headquarters. Bakers will be invited to submit their own formulas for baked goods to the lab for test production on Baker Per kins equipment. The company will use the lab to help write equipment specifications.
Air Products has a $1.7 million con tract to fabricate, install, and place in operation a liquid hydrogen handling system at Cape Canaveral, Fla., for the Saturn rocket, which the National Aeronautics and Space Administration plans to use to place a three-man space craft in orbit.
Monsanto has a second unit for making Santofome polystyrene foam film in operation at Springfield, Mass. The company says it now has the right to grant sublicenses under St. Regis Paper's patent, U.S. 2,917,217, with certain exclusions. The patent covers use of certain laminates of polystyrene foam films with flexible paper webs.
FINANCE Ashland Oil & Refining plans to sell $25 million worth of sinking fund de bentures. Of the proceeds, $20 mil lion will be used to repay bank loans and the rest for working capital.
INTERNATIONAL Royal Dutch Shell, Standard Oil (N.J.), and Netherlands State Mines will form a new company to produce and sell the natural gas reserves dis covered in Groningen, North Holland, in 1960. The Dutch State Gas Board, now the national distributor of the
gas, may be merged with the new company. The gas is expected to be used mainly for domestic and indus trial purposes, but it may also be used for chemical production as well.
Richardson-Merrell has started to build a $1 million plant to produce ethical and proprietary drug products in Mexico City, Mexico. The plant will be owned and operated by Labo ratories Merrell-National, a Richardson-Merrell subsidiary. Production is slated to start next November.
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IT'S TIME TO RE-EVALUATE Beckman Instruments and Tokyo Shibaura Electric Co. have formed a jointly-owned company, BeckmanToshiba, Ltd., to make and sell Beckman products in Japan. It will start making precision potentiometers im mediately and other Beckman prod ucts as appropriate.
Allied Chemical, Mobil Chemical, and Chinese Petroleum Corp. will put up a $22.5 million urea and ammonia plant near Miaoli, Taiwan. The three com panies are forming Mobil China Allied Chemical Industries, Ltd. The two U.S. companies will each put up 35% of the capital and Chinese Petroleum will put up the other 30%. Annual capacity will be 100,000 metric tons of urea and 106,000 tons of ammonia, about two thirds of the island's re quirement for nitrogen fertilizer. All of the output will go to Taiwan Ferti lizer Co. Raw material will be natural gas from the Chin Shui field.
Snia Viscosa's polyamide fiber, Lilion, will be produced in Japan by Kanegafuchi, Tokyo. The Italian company will supply machinery for the plant, technical assistance, and nonexclu sive patent rights for the polymeriza tion, spinning, and drawing of the fiber.
Quimobasicos, S.A., formed by Delulosa y Derivados, S.A., and Allied General Chemical Division, has started production of fluorinated hydrocarbon refrigerants and aerosol propellants at Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Anhydrous hydrofluoric acid is also being produced for the company's own operations and for use in Mexico's pe troleum industry.
RARE EARTHS Now, from a new source... Kleber Labs . . . suppliers of high purity elements and compounds for · Alloying · Intermetallics • Ligand study · Solid-state electronics · Oxide systems · Refractory materials · and many other areas of research. The rare earths have increased in plen itude and purity and decreased in cost to the point where they should be re evaluated by every chemist or physicist whose field even remotely touches upon them. The newest supplier of these mate rials—Kleber Laboratories —is now offering high purity elements and com pounds in quantity. Kleber Laboratories is a new company old in skills, staffed by some of the best known rare earth researchers in America. We are equipped to assist you with our present knowledge and with our facilities for further study in conjunction with you. We produce all rare earth ele ments from Lanthanum through Yttrium in 99 + % purity, several of the metals in 99.8 % purity (distilled grade), oxides, halides, nitrates and sulphates in 99 + % or up to 99.9% purity, plus selenides and tellurides of a number of the rare earths. Send for data and prices, or assistance.
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2 6, 1 9 6 2
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