One of the lowest-cost potash production facilities in the world, Rocanville has a capacity of 3.0 million tonnes KCl. Its mine workings are 960 meters (3,150 feet) below the Saskatchewan prairie and stretch as far as 11 kilometers (7 miles) north and 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) south from the mine shafts. The shafts carry employees down to the mining level and ore up to the mill.

The Rocanville mine is a conventional potash mine and uses long room and pillar mining techniques to extract the ore. The mine employs five four-rotor mining machines. Each machine cuts a profile of 2.4 meters by 8.23 meters (8 feet by 27 feet) and advances at a rate of up to 30 centimeters per minute. Each machine typically produces 700 tonnes per hour. Once mined, the ore passes directly from the miner onto a conveyor system which transports the ore to underground storage bins for hoisting to the surface.

The ore is crushed to liberate the sylvite from halite and scrubbed and de-slimed to remove the clay. After conditioning with reagents, it enters the flotation process in which the KCl is floated off the top of the cells. It is then de-brined, dried and screened.

The potash is graded for application as fertilizer and industrial product, and stored in a 210,000-tonne bin.

Transportation:
Rail – Most Rocanville potash travels on Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways to centers throughout North America for domestic sales or to ports for delivery offshore.

Waterways – Potash destined for offshore markets is exported by Canpotex, the export company owned by all Saskatchewan potash producers, from the West Coast, the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico.

Road – A dedicated truck facility can load a trailer in approximately five minutes. Product is trucked to local and upper Midwest US markets.

Uses:
Rocanville produces standard and granular grade potash for agriculture and industrial use.

Markets:
More than half of potash sales go offshore. In China, where farmers grow two or three crops a year, rice is the largest consumer. In Brazil, most is used on soybean, sugar cane and corn. In Malaysia, oil palm is the largest consumer of potash. In the US, corn is the major consumer of the agricultural grades of potash.