Adrian Hedden
Carlsbad Current-Argus
achedden@currentargus.com
The Mosaic Company announced plans to sell its Carlsbad potash mine for $30 million to a group of local investors who will start a new company, International Minerals Carlsbad.
The deal was expected to close in the first half of 2026, according to a Monday, Dec. 22, news release from International Minerals.
Company officials said they plan to double production at the mine about 20 miles east of Carlsbad and plan no layoffs at the mine, which has a workforce of about 350 people. Mosaic’s mine is one of two in the Carlsbad area, alongside another operated by Intrepid Potash.
Potash is a potassium-based ore widely used today in agricultural fertilizer and mined at several locations in the U.S. and Canada and throughout Europe.
International Minerals Chief Operating Officer Don Purvis, who worked for Mosaic as the mine’s general manager from 1996 to 2017, said the facility’s current output of about 350,000 metric tons per year of potash was expected to be increased to about 700,000 metric tons in the next five years.
“With some investment in people and machinery in the next few years, we can bring that production back to where it was historically,” Purvis said. “The market for what is mined in Carlsbad has always been very strong.”
Purvis said the company also intends to create new positions in Carlsbad to carry out support functions Mosaic had shifted out of state.
These include tasks such as accounting, procurement and human resources, Purvis said, all of which would be added to the Carlsbad area.
“We don’t have any reductions planned,” Purvis said of the local workforce at the Mosaic mine. “A lot of support services have been moved away from the Carlsbad site. We probably need to hire more people to fill those positions, and we plan to do that in Carlsbad, at the Carlsbad site.”
The new company’s chief executive officer, Sergio Saenz, said the deal included all of Mosaic’s Carlsbad water rights and its Laguna Grande assets, which function as evaporation ponds used during the mining process, along with the mine itself.
Saenz is founder of industrial salt supplier Rush Salt, based in McAllen, Texas, and led the growth of Hidalgo, Texas, firm Premier 1 Trucking from eight trucks to more than 100 today, according to the news release.
Saenz said he and his partners bring decades of industrial experience, particularly in mineral extraction, to the new company.
“The acquisition of this asset is an exciting opportunity to keep the potash industry thriving in New Mexico,” Saenz said. “We want to ensure current mine customers and vendors that while this asset transitions from Mosaic to International Minerals Carlsbad, our focus is to keep the business running operationally, with little to no disruption.”
Mosaic Executive Vice President of Operations Karen Swager said the sale will allow her company to focus all of its potash operations in Saskatchewan, Canada, another main production hub in North America.
“We are pleased that International Minerals Carlsbad will provide continuity for our Carlsbad employees at the site, and that Mosaic has taken another step to focus on core assets,” Swager said in a statement announcing the sale.
“Our potash production is now entirely focused on our operations in Saskatchewan, Canada, which are expected to continue to generate strong returns.”
‘A unique product’
The first discovery of potash in North America was in Carlsbad, on Aug. 1, 1925, according to a report from the Bureau of Land Management. The ore quickly stimulated the local economy from an agricultural to a commodity base.
Before the discovery in southeast New Mexico, the report read, the U.S. was dependent on German potash, which was used over the decades for myriad household and other products including gunpowder and makeup.
At the start of World War II, Germany placed an embargo on importation of its potash, driving prices up from $35 to more than $1,000 per ton, the report read, but as production grew in Carlsbad, the domestic market stabilized.
Carlsbad’s economy received another boost in 2012, when the U.S. Department of the Interior enacted a policy allowing oil and gas drilling and potash mining to occur simultaneously in the same area, according to the report.
Purvis said Carlsbad’s potash mines produced a unique type of the ore not mined commercially anywhere else.
It’s made up of a mineral called langbeinite, known as K-Mag commercially, which Purvis said can be used to fertilize sensitive, specialty crops such as fruits and vegetables.
“It’s a unique product, and the demand exceeds the production capacity at the plant,” he said.
Carlsbad Mayor Rick Lopez said the potash industry was critical to the city’s economy, and its future growth.
“We’re a potash mining community,” he said. “It has sustained us for 100 years. We’ve had layoffs and shutdowns we’ve had to get through, but it’s always sustained us. The mines are still very important.”
Managing Editor Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, or @AdrianHedden on the social media platform X.
