Last month my article was published under the title: In the wake of the Beirut disaster: Australia changes ammonium nitrate storage regulations. In the article I reviewed a discussion document, which the government of New South Wales in Australia published for public comments on additional safety measures, which would strengthen the existing regulation on solid ammonium nitrate storage facilities.
Last week, articles were published in the Australian media, in which the industry’s position on the issue. In the article, published by the Newcastle Herald, the industry’s position was brought forward, according to which the government’s plan to tighten the regulation on ammonium nitrate could lead to the closure of the factory on the island of Orica Kooragang.
And this is to know: Orica is one of the leading providers of mining/quarrying and infrastructure solutions in the world, and among other things produces and supplies explosives, blasting systems and chemicals for mining/quarrying. The plant on Kooragang Island began in 1969 to produce ammonium nitrate for use as a fertilizer in the agricultural industry.
The original activity at the site included an ammonia plant, a nitric acid plant and an ammonium nitrate plant. When the site began operating it produced 150,000 tons per year of ammonium nitrate for use as fertilizer. A second nitric acid plant and an ammonium nitrate plant were built in 1989 and increased ammonium nitrate production to 300,000 tons per year.
Orica took ownership of the Kooragang Island site in 2003. The following year, a third nitric acid plant was added to the site increasing ammonium nitrate production to its current level of approximately 400,000 tonnes per year. On Kooragang Island, they stopped producing ammonium nitrate for use as a fertilizer, and since then only ammonium nitrate suitable for the production of explosives (used mainly for the mining and quarrying industry) is produced.
Both ORICA and the coal industry claim that if the government’s plan goes ahead, domestic production will cease completely and new risks to the public will be created due to the need to dramatically increase imports of the material via sea transport through the Port of Newcastle.
In another article, published by the Newcastle Herald, the industry’s position was presented, according to which there is no dispute that ammonium nitrate is explosive under certain circumstances; However, the history of the use of ammonium nitrate in Australia shows that the existing regulation is sufficient, and that accepting the government’s proposal could only worsen the situation.
ORICA also referred to the state of the ammonium nitrate storage pool as recorded in the Port of Beirut prior to the massive explosion, saying that such poor level storage would never be possible in Australia.
Investigating the giant fire at the Winston Weaver fertilizer plant
Another article of mine was published last month under the title: A year ago, USA: A fire at a fertilizer factory with ammonium nitrate required the evacuation of 6500 people. This article described a huge fire at the Winston Weaver fertilizer plant in North Carolina, USA.
There was enough ammonium nitrate in the factory for it to be one of the most serious explosions in the history of the USA: an amount of about 500 tons was stored in the factory, about 100 tons were stored in a nearby railroad car, and the factory also stored 5,000 tons of finished fertilizer. The company was fined for two violations , which could have contributed to the fire:
Buildings for storing ammonium nitrate were not kept dry and sealed from water infiltration through the roof, walls and floors, and wooden containers, which the company used, were not manufactured in such a way as to prevent the possibility of percolation of the ammonium nitrate.
The fire in 2022 started on the south side of the factory in a building that was used to store fertilizer pallets. There was a compressor in the building, which had to be repaired frequently. The factory workers believe that the fire occurred due to an electrical failure of an unknown nature inside the compressor. From there the fire spread north to the mixture plant.
Last week, The Pulse website published an investigation into the fire, which relied on photos and documents provided by the Labor Department to Policy Watch in accordance with the state’s public records law. According to the investigation, a combination of three risk factors likely contributed to the giant fire:
Water: Rainwater seeped in, came into contact with the pile of ammonium nitrate, caused its crystallization, as a result of which the material was compressed into a solid block and increased the likelihood of explosion in the event of exposure to an inciting factor: fire, heat or shock.
Workers told the investigating officers that parts of the building’s roof had gaping holes that allowed rainwater to seep into the factory. Officials at the company told investigators and provided evidence showing that before the fire it had paid for repairs to the roof and other parts of the building. One of the workers told the investigators that water leaked from the roof, including in the ammonium nitrate storage area, and that it was never repaired until the time of the fire.
Electricity: The plant had a history of electrical problems. Unsealed electrical boxes, exposed live electrical wires, dust accumulation, an electrocuted and fatally injured worker, an electrical fault that caused machinery to stop working, hot material to fall into the pile, produce smoke (neighborhoods almost two miles away were engulfed in smoke) and melt.
An anonymous complaint, submitted to the Ministry of Labor, expressed concern that the fire could be the result of safety reasons and/or electrical malfunctions, but investigators were unable to verify this.
Ammonium nitrate: Containers in the mixing plant, which contained ammonium nitrate, were not treated to prevent contamination of the material and infiltration of other substances. Most of the containers were made of wood. The company told investigators that it had not cared for the tree since it bought the plant from the previous owner six years earlier.
According to the researchers, the previous owners also did not take care of the tree, and in any case six years is too long between one treatment and another. The lack of wood treatment could have caused ammonium nitrate to leak into the porous wood walls, which could have ignited the combustion in the event of a fire, thus increasing the risk of explosion.
In addition, the partitions between the storage of the ammonium nitrate and other substances, which could contaminate it (in addition to ammonium nitrate, the factory routinely stored up to 1,600 tons of other chemicals) were not sufficiently sealed.