The underground operation employs 4S% of the total hourly and salaried workforce at IMC Potash. Maintenance and electrical workers account for 30% of the underground employees.
The mine is organized by mining level. The sylvite and langbeinite operations have separate production and maintenance personnel, but a common main shop and electrical and belt groups. The long distances and travel times limit substantial sharing of labor resources between levels. The two extreme production areas are 32 km (20 miles) apart, which requires over 1 hour of travel time.
Since the deployment of continuous mining systems, employment levels have been reduced by 7% while production has increased by over 2S%. The annual product1on capacity is 8.lmillion tonnes (8.9 million tons) of combined sylvite and langbeinite ore.