AMERICAN SODA: THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE BOX

摘要

American Soda first shipped product from its soda ash and sodium bicarbonate mining and production facility located on the western slope in Colorado in November of 2000, making American Soda the industry's newest operation in the world. But the fact that American Soda is the newest entrant in the soda ash and sodium bicarbonate markets or that it is the newest entrant in the United State's natural soda ash industry is not what makes American Soda unique from any other producer in the world. American Soda is unique in this industry because the basis of its inception originated "outside of the box", or against convention, with regard to the start-up of a new facility in a mature commodity market. Throughout the history of man, the greatest technical strides have occurred as a direct result of someone thinking "outside of the box". American Soda has succeeded in introducing several new technologies to these two, mature commodity industries and has initiated the economic development of a new resource for the production of soda ash. Specifically, American Soda took on the challenge of developing and implementing new mining, transporting and processing technologies to recover and produce product from an undeveloped resource located in the Piceance Creek Basin of western Colorado employing a green field mining operation located over 50 miles away from its brown field processing and shipping facility, both operated by newly organized staffs. Most companies would not attempt such an extraordinary feat, but American Soda has not only succeeded in meeting these challenges, but has also succeeded in overcoming the challenges generated by its own industry. American Soda's successes have not come easily. The one assurance that anyone who has gone against convention can give is that "bumps and bruises" will be incurred once a step "outside of the box" is made. "Bumps and bruises" taken, American Soda's technical advances in the mining, transportation and production of these products have redefined production economics which may lead to several new marketing opportunities for a mature market that has experienced little growth in the recent past. Furthermore, American Soda came online faster and has produced more soda ash and sodium bicarbonate in its first and second years of operation than any other producer in the history of the industry and in an unprecedented, environmentally friendly fashion.