The Blew Bayou Chemical Company in Louisiana announced yesterday evening that their production capacity for polyacrylamide emulsion polymers had been cut in half by a suspected cyberattack on their facility. The Blew Bayou facility is one of only two domestic facilities currently producing these polymers for the municipal water treatment market. The loss of production at the facility could begin impacting drinking water and wastewater treatment facilities across the United States in the next two weeks.
The chemical reaction vessel was damaged when the mixing system was interrupted in the early stages of a polymerization process. The lack of agitation prevented adequate cooling and the exothermic reaction ran out of control. Safety systems stopped a catastrophic overpressure situation from occurring, but the vessel and many of its attached lines were damaged in the incident. Engineers are currently assessing how much damage actually occurred and what repairs will be necessary to return the facility to operation.
An older sister plant in Mississippi was taken out of operation early in the pandemic because of efficiency issues and limited monomer availability. Blew Bayou is reportedly considering reopening that plant.
Blew Bayou CEO Issac B Kaghun told reporters this morning that the agitator stoppage was apparently caused by a cyberattack. “Our engineers have log data showing that the agitator motor was turned off remotely, even while the control room computers were showing continued agitation,” Kaghun said.
The Federal Bureau of Inquiry has confirmed that they are investigating a potential cyber attack at the facility. “We have a cyber investigation team at the site,” Johnathan Quest, FBI spokesperson, said at a news conference this morning.
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