According Egyptian sources, the Heliopolis Company for Chemical Industries was Egypt's first state-owned weapons production plant, built in 1949. During the 1960s, as a component of the Egyptian General Aero Organization, it was involved in the design, development and production of rocket fuels and warhead explosives for the al-Kahir, al-Zafir and al-Ra'id ballistic missiles. It currently manufactures a wide range of mortars and artillery, tank, and air defense ammunition.

For a facility so strategic, advanced and of so great risk as this, built in a place where the high temperatures are common, the alleged cause of the huge blast is only a cloud of smoke to evade further explanations.