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Potash

(All dollar values are CDN)

Allan

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 and Area (along with PCS Cory and PotashCorp Head Office) 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).

  2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Annual Production (000 tonnes KCl) 1,344.0 1,430.7 992.3 1,743.9 1,093.0
           
Employment          
# of employees 285 293 312 336 347
# of female employees 8 8 9 12 12
Gender ratio (% female/total employees) 3.0 2.7 2.9 3.6 3.5
Average tenure (years) 19.4 17.7 16.7 16.8 15.8
Absenteeism rate (% hours absent) 6.1 6.9 7.2 7.0 7.6
Employee training provided (hrs per employee) 110 103 33 81 91
           
Safety Performance          
Lost-time frequency (per 200,000 hrs) 1.0 0.7 0.3
Recordable frequency (per 200,000 hrs) 3.6 8.8 3.8 1.8 3.0
           
Greenhouse Gas Emissions          
GHG emissions (000 tonnes) 81.2 83.7 73.5 87.9 72.9
Normalized GHGs (GHGs/tonne production) 0.06 0.06 0.07 0.05 0.07
           
NPRI Air Pollutants (tonnes)          
Nitrogen oxides 68.4 72.3 62.1 80.0 67.0
Carbon monoxide 58.5 62.4 53.3 68.9 57.5
Particulates (dust) 352.1 378.9 272.9 318.0 229.3
Volatile organic compounds 71.1 84.4 57.1 94.0 63.4
           
Waste to Land (000 tonnes)          
Waste salt to storage 1,696 2,086 1,289 2,169 880
Clay and fine salt waste 177 196 122 236 178
Salt in brine injection well 645 610 580 756 1,062
           
Water Use (000 m3)          
Water withdrawn 1,669 1,753 1,673 1,868 1,622
           
Environmental Expenditures
($ 000)
         
Operating expenditures 2,747 2,799 1,650 2,862 3,304
Capital expenditures 176 3,271 3,566 1,505
           
Energy          
Energy costs ($ million) 14.9 19.2 15.0 19.8 19.3
Energy use (TJ) 1,867 1,961 1,700 2,348 1,873
Energy efficiency (GJ/tonne production) 1.39 1.37 1.71 1.35 1.71
           
Procurement          
Local purchasing ($ million) 20.2 26.9 20.9 34.4 78.0
Source: PotashCorp