Augusta

Operations

Annual capacity – 785,000 tons of ammonia
Products – anhydrous ammonia, urea, nitric acid, ammonium nitrate and liquid fertilizers

Performance

Significant Events

• Successful plant maintenance activities and upgrades resulted in numerous annual production records, including:
  • Nitric acid number 2 plant – 446,000 tons
  • Nitric acid – 653,000 tons (entire site)
  • Ammonium nitrate prills – 635,000 tons (entire site)
• Behavioral Accident Prevention Process® is in place at Augusta and has resulted in an Occupational Safety and Health Administration recordable injury rate of 0.62 for the entire site. This rate includes all personnel on site, not just PotashCorp employees. The Augusta site did not have a lost-time injury in 2007 or 2008.
• We were unable to maintain normal operating rates for the plant during the fourth quarter due to the economic downturn.

Community Relations

• The River Road Community Advisory Panel – an important link between the chemical facilities and communities – was realigned due to inactivity, and held four quarterly meetings in 2008 to discuss topics of interest. Discussion focused on Emergency Management Agency evacuation plans, an emergency exit project for Columbia Nitrogen Road and other community matters.

Community Donations

• Cash donations to local community organizations in 2008 totaled $66,800. The main recipients were United Way of the Central Savannah River Area, Augusta Boxing Club, Adopt-a-School program, Southeastern Natural Sciences Academy, Augusta State University, Augusta State National Science Olympiad and Math and Science Teachers for Aiken County.
• In-kind contributions totaled $25,186 in 2008. Beneficiaries were Adopt-a-School, the United Way, University Healthcare and Toys-for-Tots.

Education Partnerships

• Examples of education initiatives and partnerships are the Adopt-a-School program with Hornsby Elementary and East Augusta Middle schools; co-op program affiliation with Georgia Tech and Clemson University; participation in the Chemical Operator Advisory Board at Augusta Technical College; sponsorship of all Aiken County science and mathematics teachers at the annual Teacher's Appreciation Dinner; and support of Augusta State University's 2009 National Science Olympiad.
• Each year a portion of our annual contribution to the Augusta Boxing Club is used to fund a scholarship that includes tuition, fees and books.

Awards

• In 2008, Augusta was acknowledged by the United Way of the Central Savannah River Area in the Top Corporate Gifts and Top Campaigns with Under 300 Employees categories.

Local Procurement

• Made local purchases in 2008 of goods, materials and services totaling $33.6 million, or almost 60 percent of expenditures (excluding major expansions, raw materials, energy and transportation).

	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Annual Production (000 tons)
Ammonia	733	722	698	672	741
Urea solids	406	397	356	344	394
Nitrogen solutions	248	267	217	263	349
Nitric acid	544	518	583	879	652
Employment
# of employees	111	119	118	118	124
# of female employees	9	10	10	10	11
Gender ratio (% female/total employees)	8.0	8.4	8.5	8.5	8.8
Average tenure (years)	18.3	16.7	16.9	16.5	16.0
Absenteeism rate (% hours absent)	1.6	1.9	2.4	2.0	2.5
Employee training provided (hrs per employee)	498	192	24	2	225
Safety Performance
Lost-time frequency (per 200,000 hrs)	0.7	–	0.7	–	–
Recordable frequency (per 200,000 hrs)	0.7	–	0.7	1.5	1.5
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
GHG emissions (000 tonnes)	1,398	1,364	1,376	1,358	1,426
Normalized GHGs (GHGs/tonne production)	2.22	2.17	2.28	2.25	2.16
Criteria/Significant Air Pollutants (000 tons)
Nitrogen oxides	2.43	2.25	2.53	2.26	2.27
Carbon monoxide	0.77	0.83	0.82	0.82	0.95
Ammonia	1.80	1.74	1.72	1.75	1.81
Emissions to Water (tons)
Ammonia as N	180.7	97.0	213.0	170.4	205.8
Total nitrogen as N	395.3	190.6	410.6	410.6	361.8
Water Use (million gallons)
Water withdrawn	2,069	2,001	1,476	940	1,735
Recycled water	757	757	757	447	588
Environmental Expenditures ($ million)
Operating expenditures	4.3	4.8	4.0	10.0	6.4
Capital expenditures	0.4	2.4	0.8	1.4	2.5
Energy
Energy costs ($ million)	177	228	202	190	266
Energy use (BBtu)	25,633	24,939	24,843	24,195	25,887
Energy efficiency (MMBtu/ton NH3)	31.6	31.0	31.5	31.8	31.4
Procurement
Local purchasing ($ million)	14.8	22.8	24.4	30.6	33.6
Source: PotashCorp