SMMI is pleased to announce its decision to continue supplying customers with sodium sulphate through to the end of 2023.
Global supply chain issues around critical components and specialized metallurgy originally caused delays to scheduled construction on the $300 million sulphate of potash (SOP) fertilizer upgrade facility at our Chaplin plant.
Coupled with clients asking SMMI to reconsider a curtailment of sodium sulphate production in late 2022 based on an expected market shortage, the company has elected to revise its timetable in the best interests of everyone.
“When we made known our plans to curtail sodium sulphate production, several of our longtime customers reached out to us and expressed their concern about the availability of the sodium sulphate supply in 2023. With the delay in the start of construction of our SOP upgrade, we are happy that we will be able to continue to supply our sodium sulphate customers throughout 2023,” says Brent Avery, General Manager of the Chaplin plant.
In the end, the delay in the construction schedule by a year is expected to optimize the start of production of our new SOP product in coordination with the ongoing production of sodium sulphate.
“The detailed construction planning that we undertook in the summer and early fall of 2022 led us to the conclusion that the supply chain issues being faced by all companies globally in North America, and especially by our critical suppliers, were going to pose potentially insurmountable challenges to our schedule. Given these challenges and the feedback from our sodium sulphate customers, we have made the decision to continue with the detailed engineering and construction of our SOP upgrade project but defer the its start of construction to the fall of 2023,” says Rodney McCann, President of Saskatchewan Mining and Minerals Inc.