The sugar market turned explosive Thursday night, but not in the way bulls would have wanted.

An explosion and fire at a sugar refinery near Savannah, Ga., severely injured dozens of people. A half-dozen refinery workers remain missing according to Imperial Sugar Co. (NASDAQ GM:IPSU), owner and operator of the plant, but no deaths have been confirmed.

The sprawling Port Wentworth plant is closed while rescue and recovery operations continue and damage is assessed. There has been no official word on the length of the closure.

Texas-based Imperial Sugar acquired the refinery in a 1997 merger with Savannah Foods & Industries, makers of Dixie Crystals. The deal doubled Imperial's productive capacity, making it the country's largest sugar refiner. Imperial markets sugar to the consumer market under the Imperial, Dixie Crystals and Holly brands as well as supplying sweeteners to the food service and manufacturing industries.

If bulls were looking for a silver lining amid the clouds of smoke and sugar dust, they were disappointed this morning. Not surprisingly, Imperial's shares opened sharply lower, slumping 13.5% to $18.61 before staging a ragged recovery to the $19 level.

The sugar market offered no solace either. Reflecting the current glut, domestic (#14) sugar actually moved lower today, at one point dropping 3.3% to 19.80 cents per pound on the NYBOT/ICE platform.

Futures-based agriculture ETFs and ETNs such as RJA, DBA and JJA were unaffected by the refinery incident since their sugar components track world (#11) sugar, not domestic supplies.

March NYBOT/ICE Sugar #14