Genesis Alkali operates a multi-faceted mining and production facility in Green River, Wyoming, supplying some of the best-known products used around the globe. We operate the world’s largest natural soda ash mine and production site, and strive to harness the latest technological innovations to better serve our customers.
Genesis Alkali employs approximately 950 people at eight processing plants and an underground mining operation that is 1,600 feet (488 meters) below the Earth’s surface.
We are proud of employing several generations of reliable, hard-working families over many decades and are determined to maintain a culture of safety as a core value.
50 Million Years of History
The Green River story began some 50 million years ago, when this Wyoming site was at the bottom of a 1,000 square-mile body of water called Lake Gosiute. Over millions of years, runoff from the surrounding mountains carried sodium-rich compounds into the lake. That sodium reacted with carbon dioxide to form the mineral called trona. In time, this reaction created the largest trona deposit in the world, and, as Lake Gosiute dried up, an estimated 130 billion short tons (1.18 billion metric tons) of trona were deposited across the Green River Basin.
Trona ore is naturally occurring sodium sesquicarbonate. Since discovery of the trona beds in 1938, the Green River Basin has become the preferred source of high quality soda ash and other sodium products that ship worldwide.
Vital to Everyday Products
From trona ore we make soda ash, sodium bicarbonate, S-Carb®, Sesqui® and sodium hydroxide. Soda ash is an essential component in making glass, fiberglass, detergents, tableware, lighting, and display screens for consumer electronics. Sodium bicarbonate, commonly known as baking soda, has countless applications including those in foods, an array of consumer products, and pharmaceuticals. S-Carb® is the preferred ingredient in animal feed to balance rumen pH and provide electrolytes for poultry and swine. Sesqui® sodium sesquicarbonate provides the silky clean feeling in bath salts and many cleaning compounds.
The Green River operation has been mining trona for roughly seven decades and today produces more than 4 million short tons (3.63 million metric tons) of soda ash and derivative products annually. Genesis Alkali ships approximately 40,000 railcars and 5,000 truck orders each year. And we do it all more efficiently and economically, on a delivered basis, than synthetic competitors anywhere in the world. Genesis Alkali has its corporate offices in Philadelphia.
Demand for soda ash is growing globally. See below for breakdown of demand by end use and region.
For more information, please download the Genesis Alkali brochure.