PCS plans $70-million expansion

Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (POT-T), the world’s leading producer of fertilizer, plans to spend $70 million to expand its purified phosphoric acid plant at Aurora, North Carolina.

The plant’s capacity will be upped by 83,000 metric tonnes, or about 50%, to 251,000 tonnes per month. Detailed engineering will begin immediately, with construction beginning by mid-October.

The $70-million project will be fully operational by the first quarter of 2003.

PCS says the expansion will not increase its overall phosphoric acid (P₂O₅) capacity as existing capacity will be shifted to higher-margin products, which are sold to industrial customers in North America.

The expansion is not expected to expand North American purified acid capacity, as the new production employs the wet acid process and will replace old, expensive thermal plants which are shutting down.

The company says that, after the expansion, the plant, already one of the lowest-cost operations internationally, will rank as the world’s largest.

Last year the plant, which employs more than 1,150 people, produced just less than 1.1 million tonnes of P₂O₅ and about 4.7 million tonnes of phosphate rock.