Carseland Turnaround: Setting up for Future Success and Reliability

Last fall, Nutrien’s nitrogen facility in Carseland, Alberta, completed a 39-day turnaround. These highly coordinated events, occurring every few years, focus on essential maintenance, equipment inspections, and tasks that boost operational efficiency and reliability. This recent turnaround not only significantly reduced process safety risks but also brought economic benefits to the local community by creating jobs and supporting local businesses.

“For Nutrien to have an event of this magnitude with no injuries, completed on schedule, and under budget is a big win,” says Katrina Hauck Miller, General Manager at Carseland. “This success is attributed to the collaboration between various teams, including the ETC (Engineering, Technology and Capital), Procurement, and Commercial teams, which ensured a seamless execution.”

Focus on Process Safety

While enhanced efficiency and reliability are always desired outcomes from turnarounds, one of the unique aspects of this event was its focus on personal safety and process safety risk reduction. Simply put, process safety means keeping our products securely in the pipes.

“A safe plant is a reliable one,” says Katrina. “This turnaround marked the biggest step change in process safety in the site's history by addressing some long-standing opportunities to significantly improve reliability and safety.”

The process safety risk reduction work included high-profile improvements like rerouting several emergency ammonia vent points to a safer location, and the complete rebuild of a major boiler combustion system to meet current CSA standards.With the new boiler combustion system, the team also took the extra steps of fully assembling and testing the system offsite, including all the control systems, to ensure everything would work the first time. This meticulous preparation ensured smooth installation and commissioning, resulting in no delays to startup and no issues afterwards.

Over 1,200 people were working onsite each day for the turnaround, over five times the number of workers typically onsite in a given day. And in the 381,385 total labor hours worked over the event, there were zero recordable or lost time injuries and no potentially serious injury or fatality (PSIF) incidents, which speaks to the team’s commitment to ensure everyone goes home safe, every day.

"The safety culture at Nutrien is commendable. It makes everyone feel valued and secure," said one contractor in an anonymous post-turnaround survey.

Another worker commented, "Encouraging open dialogue about safety concerns fosters a proactive approach to risk management."

Local Benefits

With that many people travelling to the site, the project also brought economic benefits to the local community through increased employment and support for local businesses, enhancing Nutrien's relationship with the community.

The turnaround saw over $100 million invested in maintaining Carseland as a safe and efficient site.

Next Up: Expansion 2026

While a new ammonia converter brought online during this turnaround enabled Carseland to produce incremental tonnes of ammonia, preparations are already underway for the next turnaround in 2026 which will focus on further expansion to increase production of crop nutrients for farmers to feed a growing world population.

By keeping the next turnaround top of mind during this event, the team aims to complete scoping in advance and leverage key learnings.

“We are incredibly proud of everyone involved in making this turnaround a success,” says Adam Woodruff, Senior Event Manager. “Your hard work and commitment to safety truly makes a difference.”

About Nutrien Carseland

Nutrien’s Carseland facility manufactures nitrogen fertilizers for farmers. The end-use products are anhydrous ammonia, granular urea, and coated urea.

Together with its employees at the site, the facility has the capacity to safely produce over 1 million tonnes of nitrogen-based fertilizers and products each year.

Nutrien also meaningfully contributes to the surrounding communities in Wheatland County and partners with many local organizations including the ik-ka-nutsi program at Carseland School and many food solutions, greenhouse and agriculture programs who share our values and approach. Since 2019 we have donated over $170,000 to local organizations and volunteered over 1,200 hours with our community partners.