Yuntianhua Ammonia Unit Suffers Explosion    

March 23rd - an explosion happened at the 500 000 t/a synthetic ammonia unit of Yunnan Yuntianhua Co., Ltd. (Yuntianhua, SH: 600096). Five workers were slightly wounded, no death. The unexpected crackdown of the outlet pipeline in the synthetic tower caused a leak of gases with high pressure and high temperature, leading to explosion.
    The company took the synthetic ammonia unit offline in half hour. As reported, the accident has not brought pollution to environment. The company can not confirm in its March 24th report the recovery timesheet for the synthetic ammonia unit. The related organizations are investigating the accident cause.  
    Yuntianhua, located in Shuifu, Yunnan province of southern China, operates 500 000 t/a synthetic ammonia, 760 000 t/a urea, 10 000 t/a pentarythritol, 50 000 t/a POM and other chemical production units. The synthetic ammonia unit uses natural gas as feedstock.
    On March 24th, the company reported its 2008 fiscal result that the net profit was RMB657.2 million, a fall of 3.59%; on sale was RMB7.7 billion, an increase of 28.29%.
    According to a senior manager of the Board of Directors, the accident does not cause a large damage and not affect substantially the company's operation. The idle may reduce the annual production and have impact on the second quarter's result, he predicted.
    This unit had been idled in January and just recovered production in mid-February. An operator worked in Yuntianhua estimated that the explosion may cause a loss of RMB1 million and ten-day idle production. However, the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS), China's most authoritative safety department may have different opinions. With more and more accidents happened in chemical companies, SAWS has been focusing more strictly on the facility that suffered accident. The recovery is subject to SAWS or its branches.
    Yuntianhua is the major urea supplier in Yunnan province. This accident may cause a temporary short supply of urea in the province. The urea manufacturers in the adjacent province - Sichuan province will soon fill the temporary gap.