PotashCorp today announced that it would soon begin an 18-month process to restart its anhydrous ammonia plant in Geismar, La. The plant has the capacity to produce 1,500 st/d. It was idled in 2003 due to high natural gas prices. Since then the company has used imported ammonia to make its other products at Geismar.

PotashCorp will be investing $158 million to bring the facility back up. It will hire 33 full time employees and 13 contractors. The location currently has 210 employees involved in the production of other products, including nitric acid, UAN, and urea.

Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc. is the world’s largest fertilizer enterprise by capacity producing the three primary plant nutrients and a leading supplier to three distinct market categories: agriculture, with the largest capacity in the world in potash, and third largest in each of nitrogen and phosphate; animal nutrition, with the world’s largest capacity in phosphate feed ingredients; and industrial chemicals, as the largest global producer of industrial nitrogen products and the world’s largest capacity for production of purified industrial phosphoric acid. PotashCorp's common shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange.