Chemical Plant Owners in Rocky Mountain Region Prepare for a Better Year

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The Rocky Mountain region of the United States, consisting of eight states, had expected Chemical Processing Industry (CPI) spending to slow in 2008, and it did. The region is home to only 105 operational chemical plants employing an estimated 11,000 people. From this small population of CPI plants the industry generally sees capital and maintenance investments annually of nearly $200 million, and this year, it fell short of even that at only $182 million in construction starts.

Looking closely at the approaching year there is already more than $380 million in CPI capital and maintenance spending identified for the region as part of Industrial Info's North American Project Database. Often when you see this kind of increase in spending for a specific region it is the result of one or two major project initiatives getting under way. That is not entirely the case here as there are at least seven individual projects each valued at more than $20 million or more planned to begin construction at some point in 2009. Obviously the current economic climate globally is unattractive making each of these projects even more vulnerable to possible delay or worse.

Among the largest projects identified for next year is the potential addition of a new phosphoric acid unit in Rock Springs, Wyoming, planned by Simplot Phosphate LLC (Vernal, Utah). This new unit would dramatically increase the plant's current estimated capacity at nearly 360,000 tons per year. Plans are currently in place for Solvay Chemicals Incorporated (Houston, Texas) to begin construction for a new production unit sometime during the first quarter of next year that will produce an entirely new product at its Green River, Wyoming, plant site. These projects and several others will potentially make Wyoming home to the largest portion of CPI projects planned in the region next year.

Looking at the potential spending for the region even closer, almost two-thirds of this is for projects identified in their earliest of planning stages. Considering the unpredictability of the domestic and global markets at the moment, many of these projects have a very good chance of being delayed or subject to an increased level of scrutiny at the least. More than half of the project activity will be for planned plant maintenance turnarounds and represents an estimated $30 million. This level of maintenance activity is up compared with only 15 plant turnarounds identified during 2008.

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Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process, energy and financial related markets with products and services ranging from industry news, analytics, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia services.