Decay
Slowly the proof of the existence of a once impressive fertilizer site is destroyed. I definitely need some updates here, but to give an impression, here are some pic's of the demolition of some of the plants.
The first one to go was the Nitric Acid plant. It was sold to a company in Belgium who probably thought our 33 year old technology was an improvement to theirs... Hope they are happy with it...
One of the major undertakings was the removal of the absorber column, weighing more then 500 metric tons. Some of the pictures below were graciously forwarded by some of my former colleagues, see the comments when you hover over the pic's with your mouse.
A couple of months later, nothing is left but a hole in the ground...
The next plant to go: The CAN-plant. Did anyone buy this ammonium nitrate infested steel or was it just demolished?
And then... "they" started nibbling on one of my favorites, the back-end of the urea plant. On a quick recent nightly visit it seemed that even the prill tower, that concrete monument of industry has gone to meet its maker (although, thinking about it, its maker may still be alive...). I am afraid I will have to go back in daytime to see if my worst nightmare has come true.