Carlsbad NM Potash Mines: Who Owns Them Now

Two companies have mined potash and related salts near Carlsbad, New Mexico, but only one still does. Intrepid Potash (NYSE: IPI) runs the district’s operating mines. Mosaic agreed in December 2025 to sell its Carlsbad mine to International Minerals Carlsbad, LLC (World Fertilizer, 23 December 2025), and Mosaic’s second-quarter 2026 results say the sale was completed in April 2026 (Mosaic, Q2 2026 results release). So “Mosaic Carlsbad” is now a former Mosaic site. This guide sets out who runs each mine, what each one makes, how it is mined, and what Intrepid reported for 2025 and the first half of 2026.

Potash is the fertilizer name for potassium salts. Two products matter here. Muriate of potash (MOP) is potassium chloride. Langbeinite is a double sulfate of potassium and magnesium, sold as Trio by Intrepid and as K-Mag by Mosaic’s former site. Figures in short tons (2,000 pounds) are Intrepid’s; Mosaic reports metric tonnes, and the two are not mixed in the charts.

Who runs the Carlsbad NM potash mines today

The table lists every named site in the district from the companies’ own annual reports for 2025. The district sits in Eddy and Lea Counties (Intrepid Potash, Form 10-K for 2025), in the Delaware Basin, the western part of the Permian Basin (Mosaic, Form 10-K for 2025).

The buyer took over the K-Mag and Dynamate brands and the closure obligations for the site, and Mosaic said its potash production would be entirely in Saskatchewan afterwards (World Fertilizer, above). The USGS likewise describes two companies running two underground mines and one deep-well solution mine in southeastern New Mexico in 2025 (before Mosaic’s sale) (USGS, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Potash).

Mosaic Carlsbad: the K-Mag mine and why it was sold

Mosaic made K-Mag, its double sulfate of potash magnesia, at Carlsbad. In its 2025 annual report the site was classed as held for sale, and Mosaic booked an impairment loss of about US$185.0 million on it (Mosaic, Form 10-K for 2025). The same filing gives the mine’s size: annual operational capacity of 0.7 million tonnes of finished product and actual 2025 output of 0.3 million tonnes. Ore mined fell to 1.7 million tonnes in 2025 from 2.3 million tonnes in both 2024 and 2023, at a grade of 6.8% K2O in 2025.

K2O is the standard way to compare fertilizer potash: the potassium oxide equivalent of the product. A 6.8% grade is low next to Mosaic’s Saskatchewan MOP mines, which the same filing lists at roughly 19% to 25% K2O in ore mined in 2025 (19.3% at Belle Plaine, 21.9% at Esterhazy, 25.4% at Colonsay), because langbeinite is a different mineral with a different nutrient mix. The announced deal was US$30 million, before closing adjustments: US$20 million cash at closing plus US$10 million deferred in three equal yearly payments from 2029 (World Fertilizer, above). Mosaic had earlier posted a surety bond of about US$82 million for closing the Carlsbad site (Mosaic, 2024 Annual Report), and the buyer took over the closure obligations.

Intrepid Potash in Carlsbad: HB Solar Solution and the East Mine

Intrepid’s three operating Carlsbad facilities are HB, East and North. HB makes potash by solution mining in the first and third ore zones: water is injected, dissolves the potassium salts, and the brine goes to solar ponds. The East Mine cuts langbeinite from the third, fourth and fifth zones with room-and-pillar methods, meaning rooms are mined out while pillars of ore hold up the roof. About 300 people work at the New Mexico sites, and 296 of Intrepid’s 478 employees at 31 December 2025 were based there (Intrepid, Form 10-K for 2025).

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Intrepid average net realized price per short ton

US$ per short ton, 2024 against 2025

Trio is the larger earner. It made up 48% of Intrepid’s 2025 sales and potash 39% (same filing). Trio production rose to 273 thousand short tons in 2025 from 251 thousand, and sales rose to 303 thousand from 254 thousand, at an average net realized price of US$367 per short ton against US$311. In early 2026 Intrepid commissioned a new continuous miner, a machine that cuts ore without drilling and blasting, at the East Mine, and its second-quarter 2026 release raised full-year 2026 Trio production guidance to 295 to 305 thousand tons (Intrepid, Q2 2026 results release, 4 August 2026).

How potash is mined near Carlsbad

Carlsbad uses both main potash methods. Intrepid says mechanical underground mining suits bedded deposits like the langbeinite at the East Mine, while at HB the sylvite (potassium chloride) is dissolved in water and pumped out. The Moab and Wendover sites in Utah use solution and brine methods too, and our posts on Utah potash and Saskatchewan potash mines show the other major US and Canadian settings.

Infographic

Solution mining in 4 steps

1. 1InjectWater already loaded with salt is pumped down wells into the potash bed.
2. 2DissolveThe brine takes up the potassium chloride and leaves most of the sodium chloride behind.
3. 3EvaporateBrine is pumped to solar ponds, where the sun concentrates it and crystals form.
4. 4Harvest and millCrystals are harvested, floated, dried and sized into potash products.

Moab shows the solution method clearly. Intrepid describes “selective solution mining” there: brine already loaded with sodium dissolves only the potassium chloride and leaves the sodium chloride underground. The brine goes to evaporation ponds, the crystals are harvested, and the mill separates the potash by flotation, a process that floats potash particles on bubbles in a liquid so they can be skimmed off (Intrepid, Form 10-K for 2025).

Intrepid’s Utah mines: Moab and Wendover

Moab is a solution mine on about 14,100 acres, roughly 20 miles west of the town of Moab, drawing make-up water from the Colorado River under state water rights of nine cubic feet per second, and it produces from two potash zones called Bed 5 and Bed 9 of the Paradox Formation. Wendover, near the Utah-Nevada border, collects natural brines from the Bonneville Salt Flats basin, concentrates them in solar ponds and mills the harvested salts (Intrepid, Form 10-K for 2025). Moab had 62 employees and Wendover 64 at the end of 2025.

Intrepid’s total potash production was 280 thousand short tons in 2025, down from 295 thousand in 2024; potash sales were 289 thousand tons against 240 thousand. The company said it supplied about 0.5% of world and 4.0% of US potassium consumption in 2025 (same filing).

Intrepid Potash stock: facts from the filings

This section gives reported facts only. It is not a view on the shares. Intrepid common stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under IPI. The company reported 13,406,913 shares outstanding on 28 February 2026, and a value of shares held by non-affiliates of about US$460 million at the closing price of US$35.73 on 30 June 2025 (Intrepid, Form 10-K for 2025). Those are filing dates, not today’s price.

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Intrepid sales by product, 2025

Share of total sales, per cent

• 2025 results (as filed in the 10-K, including Intrepid South, which was later reclassified as discontinued): sales of US$298.3 million, gross margin of US$54.8 million and net income of US$11.2 million, against a net loss of US$212.8 million in 2024 (the 2024 loss included income tax expense of US$194.3 million).
• First half of 2026, excluding Intrepid South (sold, so now reported as discontinued): sales from continuing operations of US$165.4 million against a restated US$162.1 million a year earlier, and net income from continuing operations of US$9.3 million (Q2 2026 release). The 2025 and 2026 figures are on different bases and should not be compared directly.
• Intrepid South, the land and water-rights business serving Permian oilfield customers, was sold for US$68.9 million, with US$62.0 million in cash received in the second quarter of 2026. The sale gave a US$13.2 million gain, and the share repurchase authorization was expanded to US$50 million.
• 2026 capital spending guidance was lowered to about US$40 million, and production guidance was raised to 290 to 300 thousand tons for potash and 295 to 305 thousand tons for Trio.

Intrepid’s average royalty was 5.0% in 2025 and 4.9% in 2024 on potash and Trio sales less freight, and says US producers avoid the capital and potash mineral taxes charged in Saskatchewan (Intrepid, Form 10-K for 2025). Not investment advice.

How much potash the US makes and where Carlsbad fits

The USGS estimates 2025 US marketable potash production at 500 thousand metric tons of K2O equivalent, against a world total of 49 million tons, so the whole United States is about 1% of world output and the Carlsbad district is a part of that. Carlsbad is only part of the US share, so its share of world output is below 1%. The US imported 92% of its potash in 2025 (net import reliance), and Canada supplied 79% of imports in 2021 to 2024 (USGS, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). Potash was added to the US list of critical minerals in November 2025 (same source).

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World potash mine production, 2025 estimate

Million metric tons of K2O equivalent, selected countries (not every producer)

Within the US, New Mexico leads. The New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources calls the Carlsbad district the largest potash-producing area in the country and records about 112 million short tons mined from 1951 to 2014, worth more than US$15 billion (New Mexico Bureau of Geology, Resource Map 24, 2017).

Potash prices Carlsbad producers realized

Intrepid’s average net realized price is sales less byproducts and freight, divided by tons sold. It fell for potash in 2025 and rose for Trio, and both were higher in the second quarter of 2026: potash US$391 per ton against US$361 a year earlier, and Trio US$389 against US$368 (Q2 2026 release). Intrepid’s winter-fill program for potash was announced in January 2026 at US$355 per ton, US$40 above the previous winter (Form 10-K for 2025). These are company-realized prices for short tons, not a market quote, and they change with each fill program, so check the latest release before using them.

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US marketable potash: production and producer sales

Thousand metric tons of K2O equivalent

The calculator below turns a price into a sales and royalty estimate for any tonnage. All inputs are examples; use your own tonnage and today’s price.

How the Carlsbad potash district formed and how oil, gas and potash share the land

Potash was found near Carlsbad while drilling for oil. Drill cuttings from an oil well were examined on 1 August 1925 (BLM Carlsbad Field Office, August 2025), and production began in 1931 (New Mexico Bureau of Geology, above). The beds are evaporites, salts left when a shallow Permian sea dried out. Intrepid describes the Salado Formation as holding 12 potash ore zones, six of which have been or are being mined, with the top of the salt sequence between about 200 feet below the surface north of Carlsbad and 2,000 feet near the Texas line.

Because the same ground holds oil and gas, the Bureau of Land Management applies a 2012 Secretary of the Interior order that lets potash mining and oil and gas drilling share federal land safely (BLM, above). Intrepid says the order replaced earlier 1986 guidelines and covers the Known Potash Leasing Area. Anyone planning a lease, claim or drill pad in that area should read the order and talk to the Carlsbad Field Office before spending money.

Water, land and closure

Solution mining uses water and leaves ponds and brine pipelines at the surface, so closure cost matters. Mosaic’s bond for Carlsbad, about US$82 million, was posted with the Bureau of Land Management and the New Mexico Environment Department (Mosaic, 2024 Annual Report). Intrepid carries surety bonds of about US$7.4 million on its New Mexico properties and has said that the most recent environmental assessment, completed in 2024, covered new injection piping for the HB solution mine. Before April 2026 it also sold water for oilfield use under New Mexico water rights; those water assets sat in Intrepid South, which was sold on 1 April 2026.

The video below explains the main environmental effects of mining in plain terms; it is general background and not about Carlsbad.

▶ A claymation on the seven environmental impacts of mining. · 2:31

What satellite data can and cannot show at potash sites

Potash beds lie hundreds to thousands of feet down, so satellites cannot see them directly. What they can show at a site like Carlsbad is the surface: pond areas, pipeline corridors, bare ground, vegetation recovery on reclaimed land and changes in land cover between survey dates. Farmonaut offers satellite-based mineral detection as an early screening step for licence areas, and results are exploration targets that sit ahead of any resource estimate. For a site or lease in the Southwest, the request form on our mining query page starts a quote, and the satellite mineral detection service page lists the minerals covered. Our overview of bulk mineral exploration including potash covers how those deposits are found and tested.

▶ Remote sensing for mining in about two minutes: what the instruments measure and why agreement between them matters. · 2:01

If this topic matters to you, read Albemarle Joint Ventures: Who Owns Which Lithium Mine next.

Related reading on this site: Mosaic Potash Mines in Canada: Output and Capacity.

Frequently asked questions

Who owns the Mosaic potash mine in Carlsbad, New Mexico?

International Minerals Carlsbad, LLC, which bought Mosaic Potash Carlsbad. Mosaic announced the US$30 million deal in December 2025 and reported it completed in April 2026 (World Fertilizer; Mosaic Q2 2026 release).

What does the former Mosaic Carlsbad mine produce?

K-Mag, a langbeinite-based potassium magnesium sulfate fertilizer; the Dynamate brand went to the buyer too. Mosaic reported 0.3 million tonnes of finished product in 2025 (Mosaic Form 10-K).

How many potash mines are in Carlsbad, NM?

Intrepid reports two operating mines in Carlsbad, the HB solution mine and the East underground mine, plus the former Mosaic mine now under new ownership. Intrepid’s West and North mines are idle (Intrepid Form 10-K).

What is Intrepid Potash’s ticker and exchange?

IPI on the New York Stock Exchange, with offices in Denver, Colorado. This is a fact from the 10-K, not advice on the shares.

Does Intrepid Potash mine in Moab, Utah?

Yes. Moab is a solution mine with solar evaporation ponds, not a conventional surface mine, and Intrepid also operates a brine operation at Wendover, Utah.

What is Trio fertilizer?

Intrepid’s name for langbeinite, a low-chloride fertilizer that carries potassium, sulfur and magnesium in one particle (Intrepid Form 10-K).

How much potash does the United States produce?

The USGS estimates 500 thousand metric tons of K2O equivalent in 2025, about 8% of US apparent consumption, with the rest imported, mainly from Canada (USGS, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026).

When was potash found at Carlsbad?

In 1925, from oil well cuttings, with production starting in 1931 (BLM; New Mexico Bureau of Geology).

Is potash a critical mineral in the United States?

Yes. The final 2025 US list of critical minerals, published 7 November 2025, added potash (USGS, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026).

Can oil wells be drilled in the Carlsbad potash area?

Yes, but under the 2012 Secretary of the Interior order, which sets rules so oil, gas and potash can be developed together on federal land (BLM Carlsbad Field Office).