As Hurricane Milton turns into massive storm, fertilizer industry in US Tampa quickly prepares

HOUSTON (ICIS)–As Hurricane Milton continued to crank up into a potentially record setting storm heading for central Florida, the US fertilizer industry within the key hub of Tampa began quickly preparing for its arrival.

As of late 7 October Milton had reached Category 5 status with winds at 180 miles per hour (mph) and moving east at 10mph.

It is expected to make landfall late on Wednesday with a general track consensus having the center of the storm crossing over Tampa, with the storm surge locally forecasted to be as high as a life threatening 10-15 feet.

Having just experienced Hurricane Helene, which brought considerable rainfall and surge but left the city and much of the fertilizer infrastructure undamaged, the community and market participants are now again trying to get ready and settle in for what will certainly be a much more intense event.

As a source said all around the community everything was progressing rapidly to being shut down over Monday afternoon or into early Tuesday.

Officials have announced that the Tampa International Airport is suspending all commercial and cargo operations on 8 October at 9:00 eastern standard time.

Port of Tampa officials had not issued an update since 6 October advising of the possibility of gale force winds impact our maritime operations within 48 hours.

At the time it said inbound and outbound vessel traffic was continuing as were landside operation as long as safely possible.

A source at producer Yara said the company was shutting down their Tampa offices Monday afternoon to comply with the evacuation orders but there was no update on stoppage of other operations.

With their headquarters within the city and substantial assets in the Tampa vicinity fertilizer producer Mosaic is in the path of this storm’s threat but had not yet commented on their current preparation for Milton.

Canadian fertilizer major Nutrien said following the last hurricane it was still assessing the timeline for restarting their White Springs phosphate facility, but they were now getting prepared for another round of impacts.

“We are working with our customers on any potential impacts to supply. We are actively monitoring the path of Hurricane Milton and have comprehensive emergency response plans in place to ensure the safety of our people and operational integrity of our facilities,” said Nutrien spokesperson.

There is some optimism that for those assets and population that is further away from the coast that the biggest threat seen from the recent tropical activity, the storm surge, will not be a factor.

There is also the possibility it could drift further south or edge up more northerly and also potentially weaken ahead of making landfall.

As an industry participant said, “We are inland so we are staying for now, will continue to watch.”

Officials were saying that residents and business need to be ready for the storm or need to have left the area by at least late 8 October.

Already there are reports of slow moving northbound traffic out of Tampa along the interstate, with many heeding the evacuation orders as Milton was being listed as the strongest Gulf of Mexico hurricane since 2005, with extremely low centralized pressure being recorded.