OCR Text |
Show Winter Potash Production Has Been Very Good Robert Curfman, manager at Texas Gulf's potash operation, this week reported that the cold weather experienc- m ed this winter in Moab has been an aid to production pro-duction at the facility. According to Mr. Curfman, when the temperature tem-perature of the brine is greater than the temperature tem-perature of the ambient air, as the brine cools, pure potassium chloride drops out of the brine solution. When this happens, hap-pens, one phase of the milling operation can be bypassed. This type of operation, while it does not remove the water from the ponds, is "Just icing on the cake" after a good season of evaporation evap-oration from the ponds last summer. During the past few days, when temperatures temper-atures have been warmer, warm-er, some evaporation has started to take place in the ponds, Mr. Curfman Curf-man said. At night, when the hot brines are pumped pump-ed into the ponds, it is possible to gain potash from the chemical dropout drop-out of potassium chloride chlor-ide as well as from evaporation which occurs oc-curs during the day. Over last summer, Mr. Curfman said, production pro-duction at the facility was slightly lower than was projected. However, How-ever, it may be that production figures and potential will have to be revised after a few years of operation, he said. "Although there are several companies which produce potash from brine solution, as far as we know there are no others who mine the brine and then produce pro-duce the potash," Mr. Curfman concluded. |