Intrepid mine at full capacity; new dome in works

Carlsbad-Intrepid Potash on Feb. 22 announced progress with its East and West facilities in Carlsbad. Intrepid said that after 60 days of production downtime in the fourth quarter of 2006, it recently returned to full capacity at its West mine. Intrepid said the voluntary shutdowns in late 2006 were taken to repair shaft damage created by water incursions that resulted from excessive rains due to Hurricane John, and to prevent any future potential impacts from water incursions. As part of the mitigation efforts, dewatering wells have also been installed, water collection systems improved, and abandoned utilities removed from the shaft. Intrepid also said it made significant improvements to its compaction plant at the North facility. During the production outage, Intrepid used existing inventories to meet customer demand. The East mine, also at Carlsbad, recently inflated the “roof bubble” on the first of six new dome warehouses that will replace the existing warehouse, which was damaged by a microburst in April 2006. Intrepid said progress on the reconstruction is proceeding satisfactorily and production at the East mine has not been impacted. The first new dome warehouse should be in operation by April 2007.