Opportunity
Mosaic mines phosphate from about 200,000 acres (81,000 hectares) of land in central Florida, and mines potash at five North American mines, primarily in Saskatchewan. The company operates two chemical facilities in Louisiana: Faustina on the west bank of the Mississippi and Uncle Sam on the east.
In 2012, the company began engineering and design work for a $700 million plant to produce ammonia at the Faustina site. The project was expected to nearly triple the existing production of ammonia on the site, and to create 53 new jobs paying an average of more than $83,000 per year.
In 2013, Mosaic abandoned its plans for a new ammonia plant. Instead, it reached an agreement with CF Industries Holdings to supply Mosaic with 600,000 to 800,000 tons of ammonia per year.
Solution
The dock at Mosaic’s Faustina site was a combination of steel-pipe pile mooring and berthing dolphins, a concrete liquid bulk loading dock, and an associated fender system.
In 2013, Mott MacDonald was retained to conduct an assessment of the dock’s structural condition and to check its capacity to handle a new and larger vessel that Mosaic wished to begin using. We performed preliminary design, construction cost estimate, and scheduling for modifications that included the following:
- Repair of existing dock
- Addition of a liquid loading arm
- New mooring and berthing layout
- New loading platform configuration
- Design modifications to accommodate a 36,000 deadweight-tonnage articulated tug/barge
Outcome
This upgrade will make it possible for Mosaic to efficiently move its new supply of ammonia from Louisiana to Florida, where it is combined with phosphoric acid derived from mineral phosphate to provide granular fertilizer for use in agriculture. Mosaic’s facilities in Florida currently import ammonia from Trinidad, Russia, and the Middle East.
Mosaic has said that forgoing its new plant and acquiring ammonia from CF Industries instead will save the company around $1.2 billion in future capital spending. The upgrading of the port facility will make it possible for Mosaic to realize these savings.