Tropical Storm Fay Threatens to Disrupt Operations for Hundreds of Industrial Plants on Florida's Western Coast

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Tropical Storm Fay appears to be set on a determined course for the west coast of Florida in a path not just affecting thousands of vacationers, but also more than 340 industrial plant operations, including some of the country's largest concentration of fertilizer plants. Although this portion of the Gulf of Mexico is not populated with offshore oil and gas industry facilities, the current course of the storm does include many large industrial plants in several industries, including Food & Beverage, Chemical Processing, Metal & Minerals and Pharmaceuticals.

As Tropical Storm Fay continues to move on a northwesterly path that covers a large swath of the coast line, it could disrupt industry activities for a much longer period of time than a storm that makes a more direct strike and quickly moves inland. More than 25 chemical plants fall in the probable path of the storm, which, was recorded to have sustained winds of 60 knots as of Monday afternoon and still building. These chemical plants include some of the largest sulfuric and phosphoric acid plants in the country, such as that of The Mosaic Company (NYSE:MOS) (Plymouth, Minnesota) plant in Riverview, Florida. Historically, these plants have weathered major storms fairly well; they suffered most of the damage from wind. Recent calls into some of these plants indicate that plant owners are expecting to make decisions on which plants to close or reduce to essential personnel by midday Tuesday.

Florida is home to a large number of commercial orange and grapefruit orchards, among others, that stand to be damaged, disrupting or ruining the harvest of produce that feeds dozens of Food & Beverage plants in the state, as well as many more refrigerated warehouses and supporting industries that depend on these crops.

Florida has been lucky for the past couple of hurricane seasons with no major storms coming its way. Although forecasters are not certain of the exact path just yet, there seems to be consistent information indicating that the storm will mature to hurricane force with winds approaching or exceeding 70 mph at landfall on Tuesday.

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