Union Pacific instrumental in developing Wyoming trona

摘要

In 1993, the Wyoming plants processed about 14.5 Mt (16 million st) of trona to produce about 8 Mt (9 million st)of scdaash. Since 1950, the Wyoming trona deposits have yielded about 249 Mt (275 million st) of trona. When Processed, that amounted to more than 149 Mt (165 million st) of soda ash and revenues of more than 10 billion. Dollars Wyoming's soda ash industry employs more than 3000 people. It pays 191 million dollars a year in wages and benefits. Operators spend 90 million dollars a year for energy, about 37 million dollars a year in federal, state and private royalties, and more than 26 million dollars in taxes. Transporting the product out of Green River also generates a significant amount of income for the Union Pacific Railroad and BTI, a Fremont County-based trucking company. The soda ash industry is the largest employer in Sweetwater and Uinta Counties and the second largest employer in the Wyoming mining industry Union Pacific played a major role in accessing, promoting and developing the Green River basin trona reserves. Today, the company is a partner in one operation, has royalty interests in all of the others, helps supply the energy needs of many producers and transports about 85% of the product to market. The company continues to invest in drilling to expand the resource and in research on how to produce it more efficiently. Since the production of soda ash from trona began in 1947, trona producers have expanded production by replacing synthetically produced soda ash markets, first in the United States, then in North America and, eventually, in a significant portion of the world. As the competition expands, Wyoming producers are in a good position to continue to replace a large portion of the synthetic ash production in Europe and Asia. Trade agreements should help lower some of the restrictive trade barriers and tariffs. This would give Wyoming producers an even larger share of the world soda ash market. With the incredible reserves present in the Green River Basin, these producers should be able to meet the world's demand for hundreds of years.