More than 850 people work at WE Soda’s Wyoming operations. Within approximately two years, that workforce is expected to fall to about 500 as the company closes dry ore mining at Westvaco in favor of solution mining.
The reductions will begin in Q1 2027 and continue in stages through 2028. Wyoming production is expected to drop by over 1.5 million metric tonnes per year as WE Soda retreats from export sales it says no longer make money.
Chief executive Alasdair Warren put the problem plainly: “Every export ton that comes from Wyoming today loses money.” He attributed that to low export prices rather than the performance of Wyoming workers.
Why the company is changing methods
Solution mining sends brine underground to dissolve trona where it sits. The resulting solution is pumped back to the surface for processing. Conventional dry ore mining brings the mineral up first and dissolves it at the surface.
WE Soda already uses the technique at its Granger operation, parts of Westvaco and its Turkish plants. Westvaco’s ELDM plant has run on brine since 1996, while the Kazan and Eti operations in Türkiye have used solution mining since 2009. The company says it has more than 30 years of experience with the method.
China has added almost 10 million metric tonnes of new low-cost natural production since 2020, while growth in global soda ash demand has slowed. Chinese exports are reaching record volumes, principally in Southeast Asia and India and increasingly in South America. WE Soda says realised prices in many export markets from Wyoming are at record lows.
The company will concentrate its soda ash sales on the United States, Canada and Mexico, while continuing to serve specialty-products customers globally. Some export customers will be supplied from Türkiye where commercially sensible.
A staged shutdown underground
Westvaco’s monohydrate plant will switch from mined ore to brine. A smaller underground operation will temporarily supply the sesquicarbonate plant, which mainly makes specialty products. Once that plant can operate entirely on brine, dry ore mining will stop.
During the transition, the mine and its equipment will be preserved, maintained and secured. WE Soda says water use per tonne will not change significantly, although total consumption will fall with production. Surface processing at Granger and Westvaco will continue.
United Steelworkers Local 13214 President Marshal Cummings said workers were taken by surprise. The union executive board met company representatives at 7 a.m. Wednesday, 90 minutes before the public announcement. “I knew the market conditions were tough, but shutting down the dry mining was not on any of our radars at all,” he said.
Cummings warned that the effects would extend beyond the 350 positions. He cited healthcare for workers’ children and the difficulty of retraining people who had built careers underground. His next task is bargaining over severance.
WE Soda says it will offer alternative roles where possible, along with career guidance and retraining. Governor Mark Gordon and Governor-elect Eric Barlow promised help through workforce services, unemployment insurance staff and Western Wyoming Community College.
The company acquired the Wyoming business in February 2025 in an investment of over $1.4 billion and says the site has more than 160 years of reserves. It expects 2027 to bring lower volumes and one-off restructuring costs. Its next operational update is scheduled with third-quarter results on 25 November 2026.
Sources
- Ciner Group
- WE Soda to transition its Wyoming operations to solution mining and reduce sales to export market
- Wyoming soda ash producer to cut 350 jobs amid market pressure from China – WyoFile
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