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GREEN RIVER, Wyo. – Sisecam’s underground trona mine has been operating since 1962 and has many more years of mine life, while the plant on the surface continues to process the trona into soda ash for a demanding market.

“There are two layers of trona under us, and there are 68 to 70 years left of mining the way we currently mine,” said Craig Rood, director of public relations and government affairs of Sisecam Wyoming LLC, which is under the Turkey-based Sisecam umbrella.

The Sisecam operations include 880 acres on the surface and the production facilities that prepare soda ash for shipping either in bulk by Union Pacific railcars that are loaded at the site or in 50-pound bags to be trucked to customers. The mine produces 2.7 million short tons of soda ash per year.

Sisecam Wyoming produces soda ash from its trona mine near Green River, Wyo., and a portion of the product is loaded into 50-pound bags for customers. The bagging facility in this July 2022 photograph is one of the surface buildings on site.

Soda ash, or sodium carbonate, is an alkali chemical refined from the mineral trona. The main uses are for glass, laundry detergent and for the chemical adjustment process, with 70% for glass.

Rood said it’s called trona underground and soda ash on the surface.

The mine operates within a vast trona deposit that the vice president of manufacturing, Guray Eken, described as “the biggest in the world,” with a 300-year life. “Soda ash is Wyoming’s largest export product out of the country.”

Sisecam also is part of a planned project that will retrieve trona through solution mining at a site south of Green River once permitting is completed. Eken said the project would include construction of two new plants “about 40 miles from here.”

He said the project will be the first application of solution mining in the area.

According to U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Kemmerer, Wyo., district office, the proposed solution-mining project, called the Dry Creek Trona Project, would be on roughly 6,000 acres south of Green River, and the proposed mine life could be up to 25 years. Of the total acreage, BLM manages 2,809 acres, 3,330 acres are private, and five acres are managed by the U.S. Forest Service.

The BLM is preparing an environmental impact statement on the proposed project, which the BLM stated would produce roughly 5 million metric tons of marketable soda ash and 400,000 tons of sodium bicarbonate per year.

The agency received 15 comments during the scoping period for the draft EIS. Courtney Whiteman, public affairs specialist for the BLM Wyoming State Office, said the EIS process should take 18 months to two years under current policy.

“We are reviewing those comments now and will incorporate them into the draft EIS as appropriate,” she said in an email.

Sisecam Chemicals and Ciner are partners in the Pacific and Atlantic projects, with Sisecam as the 60% owner.

The headframe for a hoist for underground operations at the Sizecam Wyoming trona mine sits on the surface of the large property northeast of Green River, Wyo. 

At the current operations, Sisecam Wyoming is looking at an expansion on the surface, and a $40 million ventilation shaft was constructed about two years ago that is designed for the life of mine, Rood said. A new change house was built a couple of years ago with large shower rooms for men and women.

Soda ash is traded like a commodity on the spot market per ton.

“Business is very good right now. We’re sold out and can sell every pound we make right now,” said Rood, who has been working at the mine 30 years and was the general manager before taking the current post.

Eken said “every year customers are finding it more difficult to find soda ash. Demand is up. Every year we are always sold out. It’s very stable.”

Sisecam also has a stable workforce, and Rood said the mine “has a very, very competitive wage package” and doesn’t have trouble filling job slots.

John Hollberg, a mechanic for Sisecam Wyoming’s trona operations, works on a motor for a scoop in an underground shop. The mine has been operating since 1962.

Eken said that “we are a family. That is why relationships are long-term. It’s a very favorable place for employees to work.” He said the keys are its safety culture and the pay and benefits. Eken said he has been at the Wyoming operation four years and was with Ciner in Turkey for many years.

Sisecam Wyoming mechanic Kris Kinney is working on a hose project for a scoop in an underground shop at the trona mine northeast of Green River, Wyo., in July 2022. Trona ore becomes soda ash product after it is sent to the surface and processed.

Mike McGrady, vice president of administrative and environmental services, said there are 450 employees at the Sisecam mining operation and processing facilities, and the turnover rate averages 3.6%, which tracks the industry standard across the United States as reflected by the Bureau of Labor statistics.

The operation is 24-hour, seven days a week.

Rex Sagely operates a shuttle car underground at the Sisecam Wyoming trona operations near Green River, Wyo. The shuttle car takes ore to the feeder, which puts it on a belt. 

Underground, a remote-controlled mining machine loosens the trona ore and loads it onto 30-ton shuttle cars that then unload onto conveyor belts that move the ore to a crusher before the ore is loaded onto skips to go to the surface.

Sisecam Wyoming mines trona underground and processes the ore on the surface into a soda ash product that goes into silos until it is ready to be loaded onto Union Pacific railcars on site.

“Until the mid-1990s we used dynamite,” Rood said, explaining that the continuous mining machine did away with the need for blasts.

The mining uses a room and pillar method, and the ground is more stable than at mines such as for gold and silver. Only roof bolts are required, and no dewatering is needed. Fifty percent of the trona is left behind for the roofing and could be mined years from now.

“Everything you see is trona,” Rood said during a tour of the underground mine, pointing to the tunnel walls and ceiling.

The Sisecam Wyoming underground trona mine near Green River, Wyo., has many miles of underground roads. In July 2022, after taking the skip down into the mine, it was about a five-mile trip to the area where the mining was taking place.

There are two shops and a warehouse underground, and mining operations currently are five to six miles from the hoist that brings workers down from the surface. The underground roadway to the active mining area is smooth and dry.

Tyler Dick, mine production superintendent for Sisecam Wyoming’s trona operations, waits for the cage that will take him and passengers underground. The mining beds are at 800 and 850 feet below the surface.

Rood said there are about 5,000 miles of tunnels.

The mining beds are at the 850-foot and 800-foot level, and there are four shafts, including a service shaft that transports people and supplies, two ore shafts and the ventilation shaft that replaced an older shaft.

On the surface, the ore is screened and crushed and goes through calcining and a rehydration process. The soda ash is dissolved and filtered before going through a drying kiln and on to storage. The bulk soda ash goes to silos for later loading into train cars. Bagging is done in a separate facility.

Sisecam Wyoming’s processing facilities near Green River, Wyo., are automated, with operators in the control room watching screens to keep an eye on the production. Nate Olds, foreground, and Bill Triplett are at the controls.

Operators in a control booth on the surface oversee the production of soda ash, which is automated. They send in a worker when there is a problem with the equipment.

There are seven silos on the property with storage capacity of 65,000 short tons per year, according to a company presentation.

Tailings are pumped underground into mined areas.

Nationwide supply chain problems and the Covid-19 pandemic had an impact on Sisecam, but Rood said there were no layoffs and no wage adjustments. And production was not affected, although at one point there were up to 45 cases in quarantine. No employees died of Covid-19.

Rood said Sisecam continued contact tracing even when other entities stopped.

During the pandemic, Sisecam ran extra Le Bus buses to keep employees separated at no charge to employees.

On the supply chain issues, Rood said one example is that the price of steel has doubled, which impacts the price of all the roof bolts for the underground operations.

Neil Malicoat, director of safety and health and a 30-year veteran of the trona mine, said Sisecam has been “very proactive identifying issues down the road” because of the supply chain issues.

Jesse Traylor, purchasing and materials manager, said that with the start of Covid-19 and supply issues, the company stored materials in a warehouse in Rock Springs.

Later, they found space on site to store materials, Traylor said. He added that the focus now is on sustainable procurement, including whether suppliers have quality controls in place.

He also said there is a 50% longer lead time when ordering machinery, and the cost of freight has gone up “greatly” because of higher fuel prices. Lumber costs are high, too.

McGrady said paper and pallets are harder to come by and European companies are seeking bags in the U.S. because of the impact of the war in Ukraine.

Rood said Sisecam’s main competition is the other soda ash operations in the area, although China makes a synthetic product.

The trona mine now operated by Sisecam has continued operations over the years under different owners. Sisecam is now the majority owner and Ciner is the minority owner, after switching from majority owner. Earlier, OCI owned the mine for roughly 20 years. Stauffer Chemical opened the mine and refinery in 1962 and Rhone-Poulenc later acquired it and sold to OCI, which sold to Ciner.

The trona operations are on a checkboard pattern of private and BLM land, and Sisecam pays royalties to the federal government for the soda ash.

Sisecam prides itself on environmental leadership, and Rood said trona mining is “a lot friendlier on the environment in general” than other types of mining, and the operation is “very energy efficient.”

The mine has been partnering with other local producers in the Wyoming Mining Natural Resource Foundation that is developing a voluntary conservation strategy with an objective of achieving durable net conservation benefit for the greater sage-grouse and its habitat, according to Sisecam.

The company also reported that the ponds used across the plant site attract birds, and to minimize the impact to wildlife, as part of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Sisecam executed a program that saved 220 birds from the ponds and chased off 639 birds in 2021.

Sisecam stated in a presentation that surface impact is minimal, which allows for continued surface use of 90% of its mine leases, including for recreation, ranching, farming and access to the Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge.

A co-generation natural gas power plant was built on site to supplement power provided by Rocky Mountain Power, and Sisecam reported that compared with synthetic soda ash producers, Sisecam Wyoming uses 40% less energy for its operation.

Flint Parker, the surface manager, said at a tour lunch that he is proud of the safety culture, adding that the surface team is “great.”

Rood said the site has won many safety awards, including the U.S. Department of Labor and National Mining Association Sentinels of Safety Award four times.

Sisecam’s operations also won the regional large-mine category award from the Industrial Minerals Association -North America six times. The mine also won the Wyoming State Mining Inspectors Award more than 30 times, including the underground large mines safest mine honor in 2021.

Rescue teams have won other honors, as well, and the surface mine won the Safety Olympiad in Elko, Nevada, five times when the company was called OCI.

Over the last 60 years there have been three fatalities, the last one in 2005, according to Rood.

He said the company presents gold hard hats to employees after 35 safe years, and after 40 years they can choose their own safety hat. Those with 25 safety years receive silver hard hats.

Sisecam announced in November of last year that it would buy 60% of Turkey-based Ciner Group’s soda business operations in the United States for $450 million, according to Reuters, and a November 2021 news release stated that the two companies would co-invest $4 billion in the U.S. soda ash industry.

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Sisecam Wyoming produces soda ash from its trona mine near Green River, Wyo., and a portion of the product is loaded into 50-pound bags for customers. The bagging facility in this July 2022 photograph is one of the surface buildings on site.

Sisecam Wyoming’s processing facilities near Green River, Wyo., are automated, with operators in the control room watching screens to keep an eye on the production. Nate Olds, foreground, and Bill Triplett are at the controls.

Sisecam Wyoming mechanic Kris Kinney is working on a hose project for a scoop in an underground shop at the trona mine northeast of Green River, Wyo., in July 2022. Trona ore becomes soda ash product after it is sent to the surface and processed.

The headframe for a hoist for underground operations at the Sizecam Wyoming trona mine sits on the surface of the large property northeast of Green River, Wyo. 

John Hollberg, a mechanic for Sisecam Wyoming’s trona operations, works on a motor for a scoop in an underground shop. The mine has been operating since 1962.

Rex Sagely operates a shuttle car underground at the Sisecam Wyoming trona operations near Green River, Wyo. The shuttle car takes ore to the feeder, which puts it on a belt. 

The Sisecam Wyoming underground trona mine near Green River, Wyo., has many miles of underground roads. In July 2022, after taking the skip down into the mine, it was about a five-mile trip to the area where the mining was taking place.

Tyler Dick, mine production superintendent for Sisecam Wyoming’s trona operations, waits for the cage that will take him and passengers underground. The mining beds are at 800 and 850 feet below the surface.

Sisecam Wyoming mines trona underground and processes the ore on the surface into a soda ash product that goes into silos until it is ready to be loaded onto Union Pacific railcars on site.

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