1/9/2009 Jay Yunker | Category: Industry News | 898 Views | 0 Comments |

We’re all very busy and the Salt Season is just now approaching. Hopefully the following information will be valuable to all of our customers. As you may already have experienced this season, salt is very high priced and very low on supply. We have had numerous customers want to know where the best place to find good, inexpensive salt is and that is a hard question for us to answer. There is going to be a shortage of salt soon and we want our all of our CPW customers to be taken care of and to get all of the salt they need.

We have done some research and found a few articles that may help you this 2008-2009 Salt Season. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is investigating possible collusion among suppliers, but so far she has found nothing illegal, spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler said. Dick Hanneman, president of the Salt Institute — a trade group representing U.S. and Canadian salt manufacturers — said the price increase   was caused by a "perfect storm" of factors.Record snow in parts of the U.S. last winter depleted road salt supplies, even though suppliers shipped a near-record 20.3 million tons, up from the average 16 million tons a year through the previous decade, he said. Then, fearing a repeat of the problem, many states increased their salt orders this year,   Hanneman said. Illinois, for example, asked for 34 percent more and Iowa's request spiked by 52 percent.  Hanneman said the handful of salt suppliers in North America have been running full throttle   to try to meet demand.There are three mines each in Louisiana and Kansas, two a piece in Texas, Ohio and Ontario,  Canada, and one in New York, all serving states in the Great Lakes and Mississippi River regions,   he said. Most of the salt for the East Coast comes from overseas. 

The weather hasn't always cooperated, either. Summer flooding closed locks and dams on the Upper Mississippi River for weeks, disrupting barge shipments of road salt. Soaring U.S. gasoline prices over the summer added to the cost of transporting the salt.   The point of all of this information is that salt is in short supply and the size of orders is up by a large percentage and there might be some “hanky-panky” going on the supply side(similar to gas prices, if you remember). Some solutions are simple and some are not; keep equipment in top shape and properly adjusted, use more sand and magnesium chloride, heck with suppliers frequently for late season supplies, check with suppliers in other states or areas and/or use more brine solution.

These are not all easy, but they will all help.