AmerAlia Picks HPD to Build Solution Sodium Bicarbonate Plant
AmerAlia, Inc. (Kenilworth, IL) has chosen US Filter's HPD Products Group (Naperville, IL) to design, engineer, procure, and build the company's new sodium bicarbonate solution mine and processing plant. AmerAlia plans to begin construction of the 75,000 t/yr unit this summer. Startup is slated by late 2000.
The plant will mine nahcolite, a naturally occurring form of sodium bicarbonate that occurs on AmerAlia's 1,320-acre Rock School government mineral lease in the Piceance Creek region of northwestern Colorado. The unit will inject hot water to dissolve nahcolite underground, pipe the brine to the surface, and remove the water to produce a purified product.
The plant is one of several nahcolite plants under development in the region, says AmeriAlia VP John F. Woolard. IMC Global solution mines nahcolite adjacent to the property, though it does not use the same process planned by AmerAlia. Another company, American Soda, plans to scale a pilot plant in the area to production size.
Both Church & Dwight Co. Inc. (which produces Arm & Hammer brand sodium bicarbonate) and FMC Corp. mine trona, the naturally occurring form of soda ash, in the Green River region of Wyoming. Both companies carbonate soda ash to yield sodium bicarbonate. Woolard expects AmerAlia to be one of the industry's lowest-cost producers because it will be able to make sodium bicarbonate without the carbonation step.
AmerAlia will leverage its cost advantage by selling its product to manufacturers of animal feed. "The better margins are in the USP grades," he explains. "For us, animal feed fits our distribution pattern initially and gets us into business. We can be profitable because of our low costs."
AmerAlia's contract with US Filter contains performance guarantees regarding production quality and quantity. US Filter has guaranteed that total facility and infrastructure cost will not exceed $32 million.
AmerAlia has until August 15, 1999, to raise $6.4 million and land a definitive long-term financing commitment acceptable to US Filter. Last year, the company raised $2.5 million by private placement and the exercise of warrants.
The facility is HPD's first sodium bicarbonate solution mine. The company, however, has hundreds of evaporation/crystallization installations around the world. It also has a long history of building brine-based solution mining/evaporation facilities. It provides technologies for production of both light and dense soda ash and sodium carbonate decahydrate. It recently completed a large turnkey salt plant for Texas Brine in Baytown, TX.
Solution mining nahcolite provides some special challenges. Sodium bicarbonate, after all, reacts on contact with water. To prevent this, hot water injection, dissolution, and brine removal takes place under pressure. Conventional evaporation won't work either, though HPD declines to say how it removes water from the dissolved mineral.
For more information: John F. Woolard, Executive VP, AmerAlia, Inc., 311 Raleigh Rd., Kenilworth, IL 60043. Phone: 847-256-9021. Fax: 847-251-7916.For more information: Karole Colangelo, Marketing, HPD Products, US Filter Corp., 55 Shuman Blvd., Naperville, IL 60563. Phone: 630-357-7330. Fax: 630-717-2247.
By Alan S. Brown