As a large supplier of 155mm and 152mm artillery shells, Sarasota, Florida-based Global Ordnance requires tons of trinitrotoluene (TNT) for the explosives in its warheads and nitrocellulose to make the propellants that launch those shells. In addition, there is a tremendous need for TNT by commercial mining companies. However, the conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East and India & Pakistan have caused major shortages of both of these essential chemical compounds. Complicating matters further, the U.S. has not produced its own TNT for decades…
During the recently concluded SOF Week conference in Tampa, we spoke with Johnny Summers, vice president of energetics for Global Ordnance, about the shortages and their effect on the ability to produce enough artillery shells to meet U.S. and NATO needs,TNT has been a huge requirement. To that point, the U.S. government has recently issued a contract to establish a TNT manufacturing facility in Kentucky. That’s actually a program that our company bid on, and we weren’t awarded that contract. So we’re continuing to work with suppliers around the world to be able to locate TNT for our customers.
So China is offering TNT around the world, and we get offered it one or two times a week from various brokers that approach us. We’re not allowed to procure that TNT from China, so we don’t, thank you very much. We’re looking at other sources in other countries. I don’t want it to divulge too much at this point, but we are in negotiations with a couple of other factories in other countries that aren’t on the banned list, where we can potentially bring in TNT, both for the U.S. government and for our commercial customers.
