ORICA is about to shut down and overhaul its Kooragang Island ammonia plant – the same operation that resulted in the disastrous emission of potentially carcinogenic hexavalent chromium over parts of Stockton in August 2011.
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But Orica Kooragang Island general manager Scott Reid said on Wednesday that there would be no repeat of the 2011 controversy, which engulfed the company and the then-new Coalition state government in a political firestorm over the incident itself and the delays in telling the public what happened.
Orica’s problems were compounded by an ammonia leak three months later in November 2011, and the company says it has spent more than $250 million in the meantime on environmental and operational improvements to the plant, which was installed in 1969.
In a media briefing on Wednesday, Mr Reid and other staff explained the details of an ammonia plant turnaround that would use a specialist workforce of about 350 assembled by lead contractor UGL Ltd to carry out more than 700 activities over 47 days. Mr Reid said Orica Kooragang Island usually ran with a workforce of 150 employees and 30 contractors.
He said planning for the $67-million project began two years ago and would commence on Friday morning with a phased shut-down of the ammonia plant.
The Kooragang plant has three main parts – the ammonia plant, a nitric acid plant and an ammonium nitrate plant – and production of nitric acid and ammonium nitrate would continue as normal, using ammonia brought to Newcastle in ships during the shutdown.
This would allow Kooragang to maintain production of about 450,000 tonnes a year of ammonium nitrate, most of it used in Hunter and Gunnedah basin coalmines as an explosive.
The 2011 hexavalent chromium emission took place when the ammonia plant was being restarted after the corresponding six-year turnaround.
Chromium is used as a catalyst to speed the chemical conversion of natural gas into ammonia. Mr Reid said this time around Orica would install a new type of “high-temperature shift” catalyst “designed to contain only trace amounts of hexavalent chromium”. This meant there could be no repeat of the 2011 exposure.
Despite post-2011 pressure to shut the plant, Mr Reid said he expected it to remain on Kooragang for years to come.
