Nutrien extract phosphate ore using surface mining techniques. At each minesite, the ore is mixed with recycled water to form a slurry, which is pumped from the mine site to processing facilities.

After overburden (the layers of material above the phosphate) is removed, draglines mine the ore from the mine.

Phosphate ore is pumped through a pipeline to processing, which includes: screening, washing, floating, dewatering and calcination, if required, to create phosphate rock.

At each mine site, the ore is mixed with recycled water to form a slurry, which is pumped from the mine site to our processing facilities. The ore is then screened to remove coarse materials, washed to remove clay and floated to remove sand to produce phosphate “rock”.

Phosphate rock is the major input in our phosphorus processing operations. Substantially all the phosphate rock produced is used internally for the production of phosphoric acid, SPA, chemical fertilizers, purified phosphoric acid and animal feed products.

Phosphoric acid – the feedstock for all our phosphate products – is produced from phosphate rock by the addition of concentrated sulfuric acid.