Compass Minerals International Stock

Compass Minerals International, Inc. operates as a provider of essential minerals.

The company's salt products help keep roadways safe during winter weather and are used in numerous other consumer, industrial, chemical and agricultural applications. Its plant nutrition products help improve the quality and yield of crops, while supporting sustainable agriculture. Additionally, the company is pursuing development of a sustainable lithium salt resource to support the North American battery market, although the project has been suspended indefinitely beyond certain already committed items associated with the early stages of construction of its commercial scale demonstration unit.

As of September 30, 2023, the company operated 12 production and packaging facilities throughout the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., including:

The largest underground rock salt mine in the world in Goderich, Ontario, Canada;

The largest dedicated rock salt mine in the U.K. in Winsford, Cheshire;

A solar evaporation facility located near Ogden, Utah, which is both the largest sulfate of potash specialty fertilizer (SOP) production site, the largest solar salt production site in the Western Hemisphere and the source of the lithium salt resource that it intends to develop; and

Several mechanical evaporation facilities producing consumer and industrial salt.

Segments

The company operates in two segments, Salt and Plant Nutrition.

Salt segment

This segment produces, markets and sells salt (sodium chloride) and magnesium chloride in North America and sodium chloride in the U.K. The company's Salt products include rock salt, mechanically-evaporated salt, solar-evaporated salt, brine magnesium chloride and flake magnesium chloride. The company also purchases potassium chloride (KCl) and calcium chloride to sell as finished products or to blend with sodium chloride to produce specialty products. Sodium chloride represents the vast majority of the products the company produces, markets and sells.

This segment's products are used in a wide variety of applications, including as a deicer for roadways, consumer and professional use, as an ingredient in chemical production, for water treatment, human and animal nutrition and for a variety of other consumer and industrial uses.

Products and Sales

The company sells its Salt segment products through its highway deicing product line (which includes brine magnesium chloride, as well as rock salt treated with this mineral) and its consumer and industrial product line (which includes salt, as well as products, including magnesium chloride and calcium chloride in both pure form and blended with salt).

The company's principal customers are states, provinces, counties, municipalities and road maintenance contractors that purchase bulk deicing salt, both treated and untreated, for ice control on public roadways. The company has an extensive network of approximately 80 depots for storage and distribution of highway deicing salt in North America. The majority of these depots are located on the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River and Ohio River systems. Deicing salt product from the company's Ogden facility supplies customers in the Western and upper Midwest regions of the U.S. Treated rock salt, which is typically rock salt with magnesium chloride brine and organic materials that enhance the salt's performance, is sold throughout its markets.

The vast majority of the company's North American deicing sales are made in Canada and the Midwestern U.S. where inclement weather during the winter months causes dangerous road conditions.

The company's principal chemical customers are producers of intermediate chemical products used in the production of vinyls and other chemicals, pulp and paper, as well as water treatment and a variety of other industrial uses. It typically has multi-year supply agreements with these customers.

Sales of the company's consumer and industrial products accounted for 37% of its year ended September 30, 2023 Salt segment sales. It is the third largest producer of consumer and industrial salt products in North America. These products include commercial and consumer applications, such as water conditioning, consumer and professional ice control, food processing, agricultural applications, table salt and a variety of industrial applications. The company's Sifto (Sifto Canada) brand encompasses a full line of salt products, which are well recognized in Canada.

The company's consumer and industrial business has broad product lines with both private-label and company brands. Its consumer and industrial product line is distributed through many channels, including retail, agricultural, industrial, janitorial and sanitation, and resellers. These consumer and industrial products are channeled from the company's plants and third-party warehouses to its customers using a combination of direct sales personnel, contract personnel and a network of brokers or manufacturers' representatives.

Plant Nutrition segment

This segment generates nearly all of its sales and earnings through the production and sale of SOP. There are two major forms of potassium-based fertilizer, SOP, a specialty form of potassium, which also provides plant-ready sulfur, and muriate of potash (MOP or KCl).

The company's SOP sales are primarily concentrated in the Western and Southeastern U.S. where the crops and soil conditions favor the use of low-chloride potassium nutrients.

Approximately 91% of the company's Plant Nutrition segment sales in fiscal 2023 (year ended September 30, 2023) were made to the U.S. customers, who include retail fertilizer dealers and distributors of agricultural products, as well as professional turf care customers. In some cases, these dealers and distributors combine or blend the company's Plant Nutrition segment products with other fertilizers and minerals to produce fertilizer blends tailored to individual requirements.

Products and Sales

The company generates nearly all of its sales and earnings in its Plant Nutrition segment through the production and sale of SOP. Its SOP is sold in various grades under its Protassium+ brand. The company's Protassium+ product line consists of different grades sized for use in broadcast spreaders, direct application and liquid fertilizer solutions. Its turf product line consists of grades sized for use by the turf and ornamental markets and for blends used on golf course greens. The company also provides an organic product line with grades sized for a wide range of applications.

The company's Protassium+ product line is generally sold to crop input distributors and dealers who may blend its products with other fertilizer products to sell to farmers and growers, or it may be sold as the final product. Its commercial efforts focus on educating and selling the agronomic benefits of SOP as a source of potassium nutrients.

Acquisitions

In May 2023, the company completed the purchase of Fortress North America, LLC (Fortress), a next-generation fire retardant company dedicated to developing and producing a portfolio of magnesium chloride-based aerial and ground fire retardant products to help combat wildfires. Magnesium chloride is an existing product stream out of the company's Ogden, Utah, solar evaporation facility. During the third quarter of fiscal 2023, Fortress entered into an agreement with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to supply product and provide associated services for the 2023 fire season.

Intellectual Property

The company's trademarks registered pursuant to applicable intellectual property laws include COMPASS MINERALS, AMERICAN STOCKMAN, CANADIAN STOCKMAN, DUSTGARD, FREEZGARD, ICEAWAY, PROSOFT, SAFE STEP, SAFE STEP PRO, SIFTO, SURESOFT, SURE PAWS and PROTASSIUM+, and FORTRESS FIRE RETARDANT SYSTEMS.

Environmental, Health and Safety Matters

The company's operations subject it to an evolving set of federal, state, local and foreign environmental, health and safety (EHS) laws and regulations. These EHS laws and regulations regulate, or propose to regulate, the conduct of its mining and production operations, including safety procedures and process safety management; management and handling of raw and in-process materials and finished products; air and water quality impacts from its facilities; emissions of greenhouse gases (including carbon or emissions taxes); management of hazardous and solid wastes; remediation of contamination at its facilities; and post-mining land reclamation.

The company's Cote Blanche mine, an underground salt mine located in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, is subject to regulation by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) under the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, as amended (the 'Mine Act').

The company is also impacted by the U.S. Clean Air Act (the 'Clean Air Act') and other EHS laws and regulations that regulate air emissions.

The company manufactures, markets, and sells its products both inside and outside the U.S. and ships its products across international borders. As a result, it is required to comply with a number of the U.S. and international regulations, which include fair competition (antitrust) laws, import and export requirements, customs laws and anti-corruption laws, such as the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (the FCPA), the U.K. Bribery Act and the Canadian Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, which generally prohibit the making or offering of improper payments to foreign government officials and political figures for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business or to gain an unfair business advantage.

History

The company was founded in 1844. It was formerly known as Salt Holdings Corporation and changed its name to Compass Minerals International, Inc. in 2003.