The Ciner Wyoming LCC is a mining and chemical industry company based in Wyoming, United States, producing natural soda ash from trona. The initial company was founded in 1962. Since 2015, it is under the control of the Turkish Ciner Holding.

Background

In 1962, Big Island Mine and Refinery was founded by the Stauffer Chemical Company to produces soda ash from the mined trona. In 1984, mining method was changed from conventional

drilling and blasting Drilling and blasting is the controlled use of explosives and other methods, such as gas pressure blasting pyrotechnics, to break rock for excavation. It is practiced most often in mining, quarrying and civil engineering such as dam, tunnel ...

mining to continuous mining. The company was acquired by Chesebrough

Pond's Pond's is an English brand of beauty and health care products, currently owned by Unilever. History Pond's Cream was invented in the United States as a patent medicine by pharmacist Theron T. Pond (1800–1852) of Utica, New York, in 1846. M ...

in 1985. The next year, the company was sold to the British

Imperial Chemical Industries Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) was a British Chemical industry, chemical company. It was, for much of its history, the largest manufacturer in Britain. Its headquarters were at Millbank in London. ICI was listed on the London Stock Exchange ...

(ICI) after Chesebrough Pond's was acquired by the Anglo-Dutch company

Unilever Unilever PLC () is a British multinational consumer packaged goods company headquartered in London, England. It was founded on 2 September 1929 following the merger of Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie with British soap maker Lever B ...

. In 1987, already one year later, the French chemical and pharmaceutical company

Rhône-Poulenc Rhône-Poulenc () was a French chemical and pharmaceutical company founded in 1928. In 1999, it merged with Hoechst AG to form Aventis. As of 2015, the pharmaceutical operations of Rhône-Poulenc are part of Sanofi and the chemicals divisions ...

bought the ICI interests in the soda ash production section of Stauffer Chemical. The company was sold to OCI Chemical Corporation, a subsidiary of the South Korea-based OCI Company Ltd in 1996. The production capacity was increased about one million tons of soda ash when an automated unit was pot into service in 1998. Dual fuel

calcination Calcination is thermal treatment of a solid chemical compound (e.g. mixed carbonate ores) whereby the compound is raised to high temperature without melting under restricted supply of ambient oxygen (i.e. gaseous O2 fraction of air), generally f ...

became available in 2007. Overall plant efficiency was increased by recovering soda ash from the mine dump ponds in a newly built Decahydrate plant in 2009. In 2013, the company shares were listed on the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is the List of stock exchanges, largest stock excha ...

under the ticker symbol OCIR. In 2015, Ciner Enterprises Inc., a subsidiary of the Turkish

Ciner Holding Ciner Group (known as Park Holding until December 1994) is a Turkish family-owned conglomerate that operates in four main sectors: energy and mining, natural Sodium carbonate, soda ash, container glass, and shipping. Ciner Group was formed in 19 ...

acquired OCI Chemical Corporation, which was later renamed to Ciner Resources Corporation. 49% interest in Ciner Wyoming LLC is held by Natural Resource Partners.

Plant and production

Ciner Wyoming is located at Green River in

Sweetwater County Sweetwater County is a County (United States), county in southwestern Wyoming, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 42,272, making it the List of counties in Wyoming, fourth-most populous county in Wyoming. Its ...

Wyoming Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...

, United States. The company extracts trona using

room and pillar mining Room and pillar or pillar and stall is a variant of breast stoping. It is a mining system in which the mined material is extracted across a horizontal plane, creating horizontal arrays of rooms and pillars. To do this, "rooms" of ore are dug out w ...

method. After trona ore is conveyed to the surface, it is processed into dense soda ash (

sodium carbonate Sodium carbonate (also known as washing soda, soda ash, sal soda, and soda crystals) is the inorganic compound with the formula and its various hydrates. All forms are white, odourless, water-soluble salts that yield alkaline solutions in water ...

, Na₂CO₃). Mining operations are carried out on an area of approximately , and for the surface operations are available. Green River Basin in Wyoming has the highest purity, largest and most accessible underground

trona Trona (trisodium hydrogendicarbonate dihydrate, also sodium sesquicarbonate dihydrate, Na2CO3·NaHCO3·2H2O) is a non- marine evaporite mineral. It is mined as the primary source of sodium carbonate in the United States, where it has replaced ...

ore deposit in the world. Mining operations are carried out in two separate deposit beds at depths of . The extent of the proven and probable reserves are , which is equivalent to of soda ash. The reserve life is reported to be well more than 60 years based upon current production rates. Soda ash is used as a raw material in a variety of industrial products and consumer goods, including glass (47%), chemicals (30%), soap (7%), and paper. Other products are

sodium percarbonate Sodium percarbonate or sodium carbonate peroxide is an inorganic compound with the formula . It is an adduct of sodium carbonate ("soda ash" or "washing soda") and hydrogen peroxide (that is, a perhydrate). It is a colorless, crystalline, hygros ...

(2 Na₂CO₃ · 3 H₂O₂),

hydrogen peroxide Hydrogen peroxide is a chemical compound with the formula . In its pure form, it is a very pale blue liquid that is slightly more viscosity, viscous than Properties of water, water. It is used as an oxidizer, bleaching agent, and antiseptic, usua ...

(H₂O₂), and other chemicals to soap and detergent production. Global competitors in the field of soda ash are

Tronox Tronox Limited is an American worldwide chemical company involved in the titanium products industry with approximately 6,500 employees. Following its acquisition of the mineral sands business formerly belonging to South Africa's Exxaro Resources, ...

(United States),

Solvay S.A. Solvay is a Belgian-French multinational chemical company established in 1863, with its headquarters located in Neder-Over-Heembeek, Brussels, Belgium. Since the end of 2023, following its demerger with the creation of the new Syensqo entity, ...

(Belgium),

Tata Chemicals Tata Chemicals Limited is an Indian multinational corporation with interests in chemicals, crop protection and specialty chemistry products. The company is headquartered in Mumbai and has operations across India, Europe, North America and Afric ...

(India) and

Searles Valley Minerals Searles Valley Minerals Inc. is a raw materials mining and production company with corporate offices in Overland Park, Kansas. It is owned by the Indian company Nirma. It has major operations in the Searles Valley centered in Trona, San Bernardin ...

s, United States. Ciner Holding also owns two companies in Turkey,

Eti Soda The Eti Soda Inc. is a chemical industry company in Ankara Province, Turkey, producing natural soda ash and baking soda from trona. It was founded in 1998, and the production started in 2009. The company's main shareholder is Ciner Group. Backg ...

and Kazan Soda Elektrik, which produce natural soda ash.

References

{{reflist, 30em, refs= {{cite web , url=http://business.grchamber.com/list/member/ciner-wyoming-llc-green-river-89 , publisher=Green River Chamber Wyoming , title=Ciner Wyoming LLC , accessdate=2018-01-18 {{cite web , url=http://www.ciner.us.com/about-us/ , publisher=Ciner , title=Soda Ash Production , accessdate=2018-01-18 {{cite news , url=https://www.bloomberg.com/profiles/companies/6649436Z:US-ciner-wyoming-llc , newspaper=

Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician a ...

, title=Ciner Wyoming LLC , accessdate=2018-01-19 {{cite web , url=http://nrplp.com/business/industrial-minerals-ciner/ , publisher=Natural Resource Partner , title=Soda Ash (Ciner) , accessdate=2018-01-19 {{cite news , url=https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/companyProfile/CINR.N , newspaper=

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

, title=Ciner Resources LP (CINR.N) , accessdate=2018-01-19 Ciner Glass and Chemicals Group Mining companies of the United States Chemical companies of the United States Chemical plants Industrial buildings and structures in Wyoming Industrial buildings completed in 1962 Chemical companies established in 1962 Non-renewable resource companies established in 1962 2015 establishments in Wyoming Privately held companies based in Wyoming Green River, Wyoming American companies established in 1962

Background

Plant and production

See also

References