Win by Doing
It Well

A strong track record
of operational excellence

Our focus on process engineering and plant operations and maintenance has delivered superior asset utilization as demonstrated by our record level of production in 2017 (see sidebar).

This starts with leveraging our expertise in process engineering to capture incremental production. For example, our newest units at Donaldsonville and Port Neal have consistently achieved output 15 to 20 percent above nameplate capacity due to improvements we made during the plant design and construction process and as a result of our operating expertise. We also have consistently invested in improvement projects that allow us to pursue strategic opportunities, such as our new diesel exhaust fluid production unit at Donaldsonville.

Our commitment to and focus on operations and maintenance has ensured that our manufacturing system is among the most reliable in the industry. We leverage our scale to bring together tremendous expertise, allowing us to share safety processes along with operational and engineering knowledge across our network. This encourages continuous improvement across all aspects of our operations. We also invest consistently in our plants to ensure that we have well-maintained assets.

We achieve our high asset utilization cost effectively as well. During 2017, we successfully focused on lowering controllable costs of sales per product ton through cost-reduction initiatives and production efficiencies. At our manufacturing sites, reduced plant-level activity and better procurement practices have decreased professional services, payroll and maintenance costs. As a result, we decreased our costs of sales per product ton by 8 percent and controllable costs of sales per product ton(1) by 19 percent in 2017 compared to 2015.