Plants

Anhydrous Ammonia

Anhydrous Ammonia is manufactured by combining hydrogen extracted from natural gas and nitrogen from the air to form liquid ammonia.

Incitec Pivot's ammonia plants are located at Phosphate Hill and Gibson Island in Queensland.

Carbon Dioxide

This plant is located at Gibson Island, Queensland, and operates by taking raw carbon dioxide feed from the ammonia plant, purifying it to high food grade purity then liquifying the gas for storage and despatch by road tanker.

The incoming gaseous CO2 feed is first water washed in a scrubber to remove traces of solvents picked up from the ammonia plant.  It is then compressed to a pressure suitable for liquifaction and cooled to knock out excess moisture.  The CO2 is purified by passing it though carbon filters to remove odours and dryers to remove all remaining moisture.  Finally the CO2 is liquified in a falling film condenser using ammonia as a refrigerant where inert gasses, not removed in the purification stages are vented.  The extremely pure, food grade liquid CO2 product is stored on site in a 500 tonne vessel, at -18 C and 2000 kpa, ready for despatch by road tanker.

Fluosilicic Acid

Is manufactured under an ISO 9001 quality system, as a co-product with superphosphate, a commonly used fertiliser in southern Australia.   During the production process phosphate rock, which contains small traces of Fluoride, is ground to a fine powder and reacted with sulphuric acid, in order to make the phosphorus content soluble, and therefore available to plants.  As part of this chemical reaction, an intermediary gas stream is produced, rich in Fluoride.  This gas stream is dissolved in water, and concentrated, before being purified and adjusted for strength.  Each product batch is isolated and analysed by the on site NATA accredited laboratory before being released for sale. 

Incitec Pivot manufactures superphosphate at two locations in Victoria but only produces Fluosilicic Acid at the Geelong facility. The plant has recently been rebuilt to increase the level of automation and storage capacity.

Sulphuric Acid

Sulphuric Acid is produced at the Mt Isa plant by collecting, then cleaning, sulphur dioxide before converting it first to sulphur trioxide and then to liquid sulphuric acid. Average daily production of the plant is approximately 3,000 tonnes. 

Manufactured Sulphuric Acid is used internally by Incitec Pivot for ammonium phosphate production and externally for sales to local mining operations.