Western Potash Corp, a subsidiary wholly-owned by Western Resources Corp, started its hot mining operations on late last month at its Milestone Phase I Plant, southeast of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Hot mining recirculates heated saturated brine from the crystallisation pond into the caverns, and preferentially extracts the dissolved potash (KCl) in the cavern which returns to the crystallisation pond, while leaving the salt (NaCl) in place underground. The horizontal selective solution mining is environmentally friendly and capital efficient, while also greatly shortening the time to production compared to traditional mining. This will be the first greenfield potash mine in Canada that will leave no salt tailings on the surface, thereby significantly reducing water and energy consumption. The process plant is expected to be completed and ready to harvest the inventory of potash in the pond by the end of 2020.
EuroChem Group AG has announces sales of US$1.57 billion for 1Q20, a 3% increase y/y, including 6.4 million t of fertilizers, mining and other products during the period, a 10% increase y/y. Sales remained well diversified across the globe with Europe accounting for 32%, Latin America for 22%, Russia for 16%, North America for 14%, Asia for 10%, the CIS (excluding Russia) for 4%, and Africa for 2% of total sales, respectively. The company has also said it is monitoring the coronavirus situation closely. It has implemented a number of preventative risk management measures across all functions (production, logistics, supply chain, markets, staff, IT, and finance) to reduce the probability of adverse effects on staff and the business. All EuroChem plants continue to operate as normal and customers have experienced no significant disruptions with product deliveries. All relevant sanitation, social distancing and personal hygiene measures are in place and functioning efficiently at all locations. More than 6000 office staff worldwide are working remotely.
KBR, Inc., an American engineering, procurement, and construction company, has announced that Chambal Fertilizers and Chemicals (CFCL), Gadepan, India, has successfully commissioned a new plant using KBR’s PurifierTM ammonia technology, which is now the world’s most energy efficient plant per tonne of ammonia produced. CFCL has two existing ammonia plants that were revamped by KBR in 2009 to increase production and lower energy consumption. CFCL constructed and commissioned its third ammonia plant with a production capacity of 2200 tpd, which has achieved an energy consumption even lower than the guaranteed value of 6.417 Gcal/t during its test run period, making it the world’s most efficient ammonia plant. “This is another proud milestone for KBR’s ammonia technology,” said Doug Kelly, KBR President, Technology Solutions. “We are committed to offering our partners energy-efficient and flexible solutions while always striving to improve upon industry benchmarks with many of them previously set by ourselves.”
