Allan
All dollar values are CDN
General Delivery, Allan, Saskatchewan S0K 0C0 | (306) 257-3312
Stewart Brown, General Manager | E-mail Stewart
Operations
Mining depth – 1,040 meters
Annual capacity – 1.9 million tonnes KCl
Products – granular, standard and industrial grade potash for agriculture and industry
Performance
Significant Events
- Set production records on July 20, 2008 for daily mill ore feed rate, total milled ore tonnes and total finished product potash tonnes (gross).
- Experienced a 14-week strike by 250 hourly employees, who returned to work after a new collective agreement was approved in November.
- Had no customer product complaints.
- Continued work on a $65 million capital project to modernize railcar loading, warehousing, belt conveyors, screeners, elevators and an overhead weigh bin system.
- Made efforts to address the ongoing challenge to recruit skilled tradespeople by improving job advertising and collective bargaining, so that wages are competitive. Internally, we continued to promote our apprenticeship program.
- Achieved one million hours without a lost-time injury in March 2008 and two years without a lost-time injury in October 2008.
Awards and Recognition
- Recognized by the United Way of Saskatoon (along with PCS Saskatoon and PCS Cory) for $2 million in lifetime contributions.
Community Relations
- Held an open house in the town of Allan to discuss plans to expand the tailings management area and to get feedback about the proposed new storage area for fine tailings. The meeting was advertised in local newspapers and posted at the town office. We invited local farmers and the councils of the Town of Allan and Rural Municipality of Blucher.
- Held our annual meeting with local leaders in December 2008. Addressed the new fine tailings storage area, projects completed in 2008 and plans for 2009.
Educational Initiatives
- Provided two divisional scholarships to local students, plus an annual scholarship at Allan Composite School for the Grade 12 student with the highest average in the sciences.
- Participated in a temporary hiring program for University of Saskatchewan engineering students to gain work experience.
- Our safety department provided Workplace Hazardous Material Information System (WHMIS) training to Allan Composite School students as part of their work experience.
Community Donations
- Allan employees donated $12,142 to the United Way in 2008, matched by PotashCorp.
- Direct cash donations to local organizations totaled $9,405; primary recipients included Allan & District Communiplex, Allan Composite School, Ducks Unlimited, Colonsay School SRC and the Terry Fox Foundation.
- Allan employees made $10,724 in in-kind contributions. The primary recipients included: the Western Development Museum, Cosmo Recyclables, Girl Guides of Canada, Community Living and Allan Composite School (WHMIS training).
Environmental and Energy Initiatives
- Drilled and logged holes around the mine site to better understand the characteristics of underlying soils; information will be used to evaluate the effects of the operation.
- Installed wells and instruments in the tailings pile to improve stability monitoring.
- Developed a plan to decommission the onsite PCB storage facility.
- Began review of our environmental monitoring and containment program with the goal of developing a more comprehensive program.
- Made plans to modify the #1 boiler to recoup exhaust heat for re-use; the goal is to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
- Began planning an engineering upgrade on the steam boiler burners and control upgrades, to be completed in 2009.
- Worked on plans for a turbo-scrubber system, which could cut particulates by 50 percent; testing was performed onsite in 2008.
Local Procurement
- Local purchases totaled $78.0 million in 2008, or 73 percent of purchases (excluding major expansions, raw materials, energy and transportation).
