Agrium Inc. plans new fertilizer R&D plant in Greeley

GREELEY — Canada-based Agrium Inc., plans to build an approximately 18,000-square-foot plant in the West Greeley Tech Center for researching and testing new fertilizer products.

The company’s subsidiary, Agrium U.S. Inc. based in Denver, has the land — three lots within the tech center — under contract with Golden Eye Investments LLC, registered to Thomas J. Roche of Greeley. The sale is pending approval of the combining of the lots, according to documents filed with the city of Greeley’s planning department.

The Agrium Wholesale Lab and Pilot Plant will consist of two parts.

The first part will be a research laboratory to develop the design and delivery of agricultural crop inputs — which are any substance used for pest control or for soil-fertility management. Agrium Wholesale will be focusing on polymer coated fertilizers with controlled release characteristics.

The second part of the facility is referred to as a pilot-scale research facility. The plant will be used to assist in the scale up of new innovations from laboratory research to better understand the challenges of ramping up the volume of production, and experiment with process changes that could be used in production plants elsewhere to improve quality, production rate and efficiency.

Chris Macbeth, a capital projects engineer with Agrium Wholesale in Loveland, said Monday that the research and development facility will employ about 12 people at the outset, mostly those with doctorates, some moving to Greeley from the company’s temporary R&D facility in Alabama.

Macbeth said potential construction companies already have responded to a closed bid and are working on their submissions. “We have a few more bits of planning to attend to, but we hope to be operational by March 2016,” he said.

The pilot plant is expected to be operated during normal day-shift business hours Monday through Friday. Typical traffic in and out of the facility will be employees and deliveries. Excepting small parcel delivery, truck traffic is not expected to exceed three to five trucks per week.

Agrium Inc. produces, markets and distributes crop nutrients, crop-protection products, seeds and merchandise products primarily in the United States, Canada, South America, Europe and Australia. It operates in two segments, retail and wholesale. It reported revenue of $15.8 billion and income of $793 million in 2014.

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