A fire at Canada’s major bentonite processing plant has disrupted the flow of an ingredient used in a variety of agricultural products.
Fire broke out around 9 a.m. Feb. 18 at Canadian Clay Products at Wilcox, Sask., south of Regina, and destroyed the packaging and shipping operation. Equipment inside that building was also destroyed, including a trailer, forklifts and conveyer belts.
The cause had not been determined at press time but employees had been working on some equipment and grinding metal.
Colin Jones, office manager, said Feb. 19 that the office had been spared and there was still work for employees to do.
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“We’ll be OK for a few days,” he said.
But after that, it could be months before the plant is back in business, if at all. Residents of the small community said the loss of the business, which employed six people, would be a blow.
Jones said he had talked to one of the two owners, who live in Idaho and northern Alberta.
“It sounds good, but we really don’t know anything yet,” he said.
Insurance adjusters had not yet been to the site.
Canadian Clay supplies several bentonite ingredients for animal feed, fertilizer, sealants, drilling mud, stucco, mortar and other products. It does about $1 million in sales each year.
Jones said animal feed represents about one-quarter of the company’s annual sales. About 1,800 tonnes went into that market last year, mainly for alfalfa cubes or feed pellets.
He said the bentonite acts as a binder and is good roughage in an animal’s diet. It is used in beef and dairy, sheep, swine and poultry feeds.
The company, which opened in 1977, strip mines sodium bentonite in a Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration pasture about 25 kilometres southwest of Wilcox.
The area is known for a variety of clays. Not far away is Claybank, where clay is used for bricks and the new kaolin mine near Wood Mountain.
When used in sulfur fertilizers, bentonite helps break down the sulfur and convert it to sulfate.
Farmers who have decommissioned old wells on their property have likely used swelling bentonite to seal up the wells.
