GRAND JUNCTION — North America’s second-largest producer of baking soda is working to boost production at its Colorado plant while it looks to research how to commercially develop oil shale in the state.
Natural Soda, a subsidiary of Natural Resources USA, mines sodium bicarbonate in Rio Blanco County from what the company says is one of the largest-known deposits of nahcolite in the world.
It is working to double production capacity to 250,000 tons a year.
Church & Dwight, which markets baking soda under the Arm & Hammer brand, is the leader in North America’s 700,000-ton-a-year baking soda market.
At its plant near Rifle, Natural Soda installed this year a boiler that should boost capacity by 30,000 tons a year and produce twice the heating ability of two existing boilers with less air pollution.
The company is spending $5 million this year on the boiler, a heat-transfer system and related infrastructure.
It plans next year to build a processing plant geared toward the food industry, at a cost of up to $34 million, The Daily Sentinel reported.
Baking soda has more than 500 uses in up to 10 industries.
In addition to baking soda production, the company is looking at commercially developing oil shale in northwestern Colorado.
It has applied with the Bureau of Land Management for a research development and demonstration lease on federal land.
