Moving potash to market

Ken Seitz, Nutrien EVP and CEO of Potash.

Q&a WItH keN seItz, eVP aND Ceo of PotasH at NUtrIeN

find out more about Nutrien’s ken seitz, executive vice-president and Ceo, Potash, who heads up the world’s largest potash producer with over 20 million tonnes of potash capacity at its six potash mines in saskatchewan, Canada.

You’ve been leading Nutrien’s Potash business for just over one year now. What has been the highlight?

Seitz: Joining Nutrien brought together two of my passions into one dream role: mining and agriculture. I grew up on a farm near regina, so understanding farmers and their challenges is in my blood.

the absolute highlight for me is the amazing people. We have an extraordinary team in Potash and across Nutrien, and their pride shows in their work. It’s energizing to work with employees who rally behind Nutrien’s purpose every day – to grow our world from the ground up. What a noble and exciting purpose to be a part of, focused on feeding the world safely and sustainably.

How has Nutrien responded to the COVID-19 crisis?

Seitz: one of our core values at Nutrien is safety, and throughout the CoVID-19 pandemic, we remained steadfast in our commitment to safety and protecting the health and wellness of our employees, their families, and our communities. It’s a responsibility we’re extremely proud of. We also proudly continued operating as an essential service, so growers around the world will have the crop nutrients and solutions they need to feed people – now and into the future.

our potash mines have been able to run safely and effectively from the early stages of the pandemic through to today. our safety and procurement teams led the way by quickly tailoring our pandemic response plan for CoVID-19 protocols and ensuring we had the appropriate PPe and safety supplies to respond to the virus so we could remain focused on serving our customers safely.

our commitment to the community hasn’t waned either. We continue to give back to the communities where we live and operate with a focus on keeping food programs running without disruption. In saskatchewan, our contributions total more than $550,000 out of the $1 million of CoVID funding earmarked by the organization. In addition to funds, we donated much-needed N95 masks to the saskatchewan Health authority. We have also encouraged our employees to safely get out into the community and help where we can. We increased our time commitment for volunteering to five days per employee in this time of need. I am deeply proud of the way our employees have responded, with so many powerful stories of helping out where there are needs.

some of our community investments included supporting the food banks of saskatchewan feeding saskatchewan together campaign, the Greater saskatoon Catholic schools Nutrition Program, and the saskatoon tribal Council & White buffalo Youth lodge food for the Community program.

We’ve been fortunate that for the most part, CoVID-19 has not had a significant impact on our potash business. the supply chain of rail and truck to move our potash to market was not significantly impacted and we were able to deliver our potash to our offshore customers around the world and to our customers in North america in time for their spring planting needs, and one of our best fall fertilizer application seasons.

What does the future of potash look like for you?

Seitz: as the world’s largest soft rock operator, Nutrien Potash hasn’t shied away from our opportunities and challenges. there’s no substitute for potash, so there continues to be great opportunity here. the growing world population needs more food and Nutrien is honoured to serve the farmer – from ground to grower – to meet the demand. We’re fortunate Nutrien is at the epicentre of this important conversation – and we have to be, as a critical part of the saskatchewan and Canadian economy.

Nutrien continues to deliver solid performance and operational results.

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Seitz volunteering with the Friendship Inn in 2019. Nutrien gives back to the communities where they live and operate and encourages employee volunteerism.

Global potash demand continues to be strong, and it’s encouraging to see that through a great and early harvest season, North american farmers are seeing higher crop prices and taking the opportunity to lay down more affordable crop nutrients, including potash.

Nutrien has its sights set on leading the way to become the safest, most reliable and lowest-cost potash producer network. our Next Generation Potash program is leveraging the strengths of our sites, etC (engineering, tech and capital) and It teams to transform our network of six potash mines to achieve improved safety, increased productivity, reduced expenses, and improved dependability and flexibility. through this collaborative approach, the program focuses on five digital destinations: autonomous mining operations; advanced process control; integrated planning and dynamic scheduling; connected workforce; and predictive maintenance. for Nutrien to deliver on its strategy, we need a diverse, talented team. there’s no question that teams with greater diversity – be it experience, backgrounds, gender, or cultures – make better decisions with greater outcomes because there are fewer biases. but there are also great human benefits to prioritizing diversity and inclusion. I’ve seen firsthand in my travels and work around the world that the pursuit of happiness is the same for everyone: peace, tranquility, security. and we can get there by being mindful and treating everyone with the same respect and dignity every day in our interactions with one another. s

Nutrien’s Cory mine in one of six mines in its potash network in Saskatchewan.