22 minute read

Mississippi Chemical Corporation Business Information, Profile, and History

3622 Highway 49 East
P.O. Box 388
Yazoo City, Mississippi 39194-0388
U.S.A.

Company Perspectives:

Mississippi Chemical Corporation has fostered a culture that is best described as doing the right thing. A strong commitment to workplace safety, environmental stewardship and a commitment to do what we'll say we'll do are also part of the company-wide ethic. This well-established corporate culture may be our most important export.

History of Mississippi Chemical Corporation

Although it was originally formed as a farmers' cooperative, Mississippi Chemical Corporation is now a multi-million dollar public corporation traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Its home is Yazoo City, Mississippi, located between the hills of the central part of the State and its southern, soggy-bottom Delta area. Through its subsidiaries, the company produces and markets the three essential crop fertilizers necessary for high-yield agriculture: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (potash). Its principal, wholly-owned subsidiaries are MissChem Nitrogen, L.L.C., which produces nitrogen products in Yazoo City; Triad Nitrogen, L.L.C., which manufactures nitrogen in Donaldsonville, Louisiana; Mississippi Potash, Inc., which produces potash fertilizer at its two mines and refineries in Carlsbad, New Mexico; and Mississippi Phosphates Corporation, which makes phosphate fertilizer in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Mississippi Chemical also has a stake in Farmland MissChem Limited, a joint-venture producer of ammonia, a nitrogen fertilizer, in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. In addition to fertilizers, Mississippi Chemical makes and distributes industrial-market products. Its anhydrous ammonia, carbon dioxide, nitric acid and standard potash products are all employed in industrial applications, including such end products as acrylics, adhesives, animal feed, carpet fibers, melamine, polymers, resins, rocket fuels, and water treatment chemicals.

1947-51: Origins as a Farmers' Cooperative

In the wake of World War II, both a booming economy and a population surge in the United States created a significant shortage of fertilizers, particularly nitrogen products. By the end of the hostilities, because nitrogen had been used in the manufacture of bombs and ammunition, reserves in both the United States and Europe were almost completely depleted. American farmers desperately needed nitrogen to achieve maximum yields from the limited acreage the federal government permitted them to plant. In 1947, under the leadership of Owen Cooper, director of the Mississippi Farm Bureau, a group of about 600 farmers urged the board of the Farm Bureau to study the feasibility of creating a farmer-owned nitrogen fertilizer plant.

After approving the project, a Farm Bureau board committee initiated the most extensive stock sales drive in Mississippi's history, a necessary step in financing the plant's construction. The goal was to raise $4 million. Meanwhile, confident that the necessary funds would be raised, on October 27, 1948, farmers and farm leaders from six southern states formally organized and chartered Mississippi Chemical as a cooperative and, in November, hired Cooper as CEO and president. The new 22-member board selected Yazoo City as the site for the new plant.

The $4 million target was not reached, but by the end of the drive in 1949, some 7,000 Southern farmers had bought $3.25 million worth of stock, or about 81% of the goal. The shortfall was made up by a $750,000 bond issue approved for Mississippi Chemical by Yazoo County voters. However, before construction could begin, the company had to secure a $3.4 million loan from the U.S. Reconstruction Finance Corporation. The loan was approved in February, 1950, and construction of the Yazoo City facility began.

The facility was completed in 1951, making Mississippi Chemical the world's first cooperative to build a nitrogen production plant. By March of that year, the company had produced its first ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and, by the following July, had made its first ton of ammonia. The first products were made using outside sources of ammonia, but in order to produce final fertilizer products economically, two manufacturing facilities were needed: a nitric acid plant and an anhydrous ammonium plant. In tandem, these would provide the fertilizer ingredients without reliance on outside providers. The ammonia plant offered some problems, but by the summer of 1951 it was online, and before the year was out, the company had sold 41,000 tons of ammonium nitrate and 10,000 tons of ammonia to its farmer-shareholders.

1952-72: Growth Under the Leadership of Cooper

After getting the first nitrogen and ammonia production plants on line in 1951, Mississippi Chemical set out both to expand and to diversify. Guided by Cooper, the company undertook some investment ventures and initiated some new projects.

Most importantly, between 1952 and 1972, the company set up a network of delivery terminals across the South. It also increased its output of chemicals, building new plants, notably the $12 million Kellogg ammonia plant built at Yazoo City in 1966. In that same year, Cooper and LeRoy Percy formed Mississippi Action for Progress, the first-of-its-kind partnership of black and white businessmen. Two years later, in 1968, the company completed its new headquarters building in Yazoo City.

In 1970, Mississippi Chemical and First Mississippi Corporation entered into a joint venture, starting up Triad Chemicals Inc., with each partner owning a 50 percent share. The two parties had historic links, for it was the same group of Mississippi businessmen that had helped start Mississippi Chemical in 1948 that founded First Mississippi Corporation in 1957. Triad, a $40 million nitrogen urea complex located in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, soon began producing nitrogen fertilizers.

Two years later, in 1972, the company put into operation its Pascagoula, Mississippi, double-contact sulfuric acid plant--the world's largest at the time. Its output, plus that of the complex at Donaldsonville, helped Mississippi Chemical reach a significant milestone in that same year: combined sales topped $100 million for the first time in the company's history.

1973-93: Growth and Diversification under New Leadership

In 1973, Owen Cooper stepped down, leaving his positions as president and CEO to Thomas C. Parry. Prospects at that juncture, the company's 25th anniversary, looked good. Parry and Mississippi Governor Bill Waller announced plans for a $43 million expansion program geared to increase the annual nitrate production in Yazoo City by 150,000 tons (up to 555,000 tons) and the annual NPK (nitrogen/phosphorous/potassium) output of the plant in Pascagoula by 200,000 tons (up to one million tons). Much of the expense involved arose from mandatory compliance with new EPA air and water standards. Among other things, the company had to build a waste water treatment plant at Pascagoula, which, when completed in 1976, had cost Mississippi Chemical $22 million.

In was also in 1973 that Mississippi Chemical adopted its new slogan: 'We Make Things Grow.' It could have appended the words, 'including us,' at least in the next year, when, for $20 million, it purchased the nation's oldest and largest potash reserve and mine, located in Carlsbad, New Mexico. It followed that up in 1975 with the purchase of some large phosphate rock deposits near Wauchula, Florida. Both these acquisitions reflected the company's policy of buying reserves of raw materials for use in future fertilizer production.

By 1978, the combined operations of Mississippi Chemical's plants reached a 2.5 million ton capacity mark, 30 times the amount that its first plant in Yazoo City could produce in 1951. The value of its assets had also climbed from the company's original $10 million capitalization to $350 million. Two years later, in the 1980-81 period, the company reached the most successful stretch in its history, with revenues of $395 million and patronage earnings of $53.6 million. Thereafter, though, the company entered a difficult period.

The mid-1980s were tough on the fertilizer industry in general. By 1986, when Owen Cooper died, there was a farmer debt crisis that was cutting deeply into fertilizer demands. In addition, much cheaper fertilizer produced in the crumbling Soviet Union was driving market prices down to unprofitable levels.

Mississippi Chemical's worst year was 1987, when it lost over $40 million. The bottom-line realities forced Parry to downsize the company. He ordered the lay off of hundreds of employees, closed the large Pascagoula, Mississippi plant, and dropped company plans for phosphate mining in Florida. Because Mississippi Chemical too easily fell prey to the vicissitudes of unstable commodity trading, Parry also sought to diversify the company's interests. Accordingly, in 1986 the company entered the newsprint business, opening Newsprint South in Grenada, Mississippi, a Mississippi Chemical subsidiary, and in 1987 began construction of its state-of-the-art newsprint mill.

Conditions improved somewhat at the beginning of the 1990s. Demands for nitrogen and potash increased, again reaching profitable levels. At that time, Mississippi Chemical was able to reopen its Pascagoula facility. Its newsprint business was struggling, however, and, in 1994, the year after Parry retired as president, the company sold it.

1994 and Beyond: Going Public and Facing Challenges

Parry was succeeded by Charles O. Dunn as the company's president and CEO. One of Dunn's first tasks was to oversee the transition of Mississippi Chemical from a farmer-owned cooperative into a public company. The conversion was made in August 1994, when the company made its initial public offering of stock, selling five million shares for a total of about $75 million. Initially the stock was listed on NASDAQ, but in 1996 it switched over to the New York Stock Exchange.

It was also in 1996 that the company began a $130 million expansion of its nitrogen fertilizer plant in Yazoo City and acquired Eddy Potash and New Mexico Potash from Trans-Resources of New York. Both acquisitions were potash mining operations in the same area of New Mexico. In an effort to increase its profits from the operation, Mississippi Chemical altered its plans for Eddy Potash. The company concentrated all of Eddy's mining activity on recovering high-grade potash, a move that accelerated the mine's depletion. As a result, the next year, facing declining profits, the company shut down Eddy's mining operations altogether.

Also in 1996, the company entered into an agreement with First Mississippi Corporation to purchase First Mississippi's fertilizer operations. The deal was designed as a tax-free 'Morris Trust' transaction that occurred in two stages: first, the chemical operations of First Mississippi would be spun-off to shareholders as a publicly traded company; second, the remaining fertilizer assets of First Mississippi would merge with Mississippi Chemical. The total price tag in stock and cash would come to about $300 million. The sale was completed in 1997, the year in which Mississippi Chemical also announced the planned expansion of its Pascagoula facility, with the projected rise in its annual diammonium phosphate output to 900,000 tons. In the next year, 1998, in a joint undertaking with Farmland Industries, Inc., Mississippi Chemical began production at its 1,850 metric ton per day ammonia plant in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, its first venture outside the United States.

However, the company had to face some serious problems towards the end of the decade, including a natural disaster. In 1998, Hurricane George, causing extensive damage, forced the closing of the company's Pascagoula phosphate plant for several weeks, a shutdown that resulted in a net loss of almost $1 million. Still, the biggest problems were increasing production costs at a time when market demands were declining and surpluses were mounting, threatening a glut and driving prices down. The situation was fairly grim in 1999 and 2000, and the company had little choice but to resort to curtailed production and temporary shutdowns. Ammonia prices in 1999 dropped 25 percent below the previous year, and fertilizer consumption by mid summer had slid five percent below the demand at the start of the year. In August, Mississippi Chemical responded by cutting back production at its Triad Nitrogen number-two ammonia plant in Donaldsonville. In 2000, the company also reduced production at its number-three ammonia plant in Yazoo City and shutdown production at its number-four plant for an indefinite time.

Despite the market conditions, the company continued to plan for better times. In fact, in April 2000, at an undisclosed price, it bought IMC-Agrico Company's granular urea plant located in Faustina, Louisiana, barely a mile away from Mississippi Chemical's ammonia and urea production facilities in Donaldsonville. The acquisition increased the company's granular urea output capacity to 810,000 tons. The fact that it shut down the operations of the Faustina facility within a couple of months argues that Mississippi Chemical was investing more for the future than the present, hoping for a much improved market in the beginning years of the new century. It faced serious problems, though, one being swelling production costs driven by a tremendous increase in the price of natural gas, its principal fuel. The good news was that the price of natural gas had begun to moderate by March of 2001.

Principal Subsidiaries: MissChem Nitrogen, L.L.C.; Mississippi Phosphates Corporation.; Mississippi Potash, Inc.; Triad Nitrogen, L.L.C.

Principal Competitors: CF Industries, Inc.; Agrium Inc.; IMC Global Inc.; Potash Corporation; Terra Industries Inc.

Related information about Mississippi

pop (2000e) 2 844 700; area 123 510 km²/47 689 sq mi. State in S USA, divided into 82 counties; the ‘Magnolia State’; held by France, Britain, and Spain in turn, becoming part of the USA in 1795; the 20th state to join the Union, 1817; seceded, 1861; re-admitted in 1870, but white supremacy was maintained, particularly by the constitution of 1890; highest black population of any state (35%); capital, Jackson; other chief cities, Biloxi, Meridian, Hattiesburg, Greenville, Gulfport; bounded S by the Gulf of Mexico and Louisiana; main rivers the Mississippi (forms the W border), Pearl (part of S border), and Tennessee (NE border); highest point Mt Woodall (246 m/807 ft); much of the S state covered in pine woods; fertile coastal plain; land rises in the NE; major cotton-producing area between Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers; soybeans, cattle, dairy products, poultry; petroleum, natural gas (over a third of the land given over to oil and gas development); clothing, wood products, foods, chemicals; fisheries prominent along the Gulf coast; the lowest per capita income in the USA; a centre of the civil rights movement in the 1960s; Old Spanish Fort, Vicksburg National Military Park, historic Natchez; areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina (notably Biloxi and Gulfport) in 2005.



Mississippi is a southern state of the United States. The name, which means "great river," comes from either Ojibwe, a Native American language spoken around the river's headwaters, or some other closely related Algonquian language. on the east by Alabama, on the south by Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico; and on the west by Louisiana and Arkansas (across the Mississippi River).

Major rivers include Mississippi River, Big Black River, Pearl River, and Yazoo River. Major lakes include Ross Barnett Reservoir, Arkabutla Lake, Sardis Lake, and Grenada Lake.
The highest point in Mississippi, part of the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains is Woodall Mountain. The coastline, which includes large bays at Bay Saint Louis, Biloxi, and Pascagoula, is separated from the Gulf of Mexico proper by the shallow Mississippi Sound, which is partially enclosed by Petit Bois, Horn, Ship, and Cat islands. The region has rich soil, partly made up of silt deposited by floodwaters of the Mississippi River.

Areas under the management of the National Park Service include:

  • Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield Site near Baldwin
  • Gulf Islands National Seashore
  • Natchez National Historical Park in Natchez
  • Natchez Trace Parkway
  • Tupelo National Battlefield in Tupelo
  • Vicksburg National Cemetery in Vicksburg
  • Vicksburg National Military Park also in Vicksburg

Climate

Mississippi has a warm, humid climate, with long summers and short, mild winters. Thus, Clarksdale, in the northwest, gets about 50 inches (about 1,270 mm) of moisture annually and Biloxi, in the south, about 61 inches (about 1,550 mm). Inland Mississippi is also struck by tornadoes, especially from February to May.

Ecology

Mississippi is heavily forested, with over half of the state's acreage covered by wild trees (mostly pine trees, but Mississippi has an abundance of other trees (cottonwood, elm, hickory, oak, pecan, sweet gum, and tupelo).

History

Main article: History of Mississippi

Mississippi was part of the Mississippian culture in the early part of the second millennium AD; descendant Native American tribes include the Chickasaw and Choctaw. Other tribes who inhabited the territory of Mississippi (and whose names became those of local towns) include the Natchez, the Yazoo, and the Biloxi.

The first European expedition into the territory that became Mississippi was that of Hernando de Soto, who passed through in 1540. After spending some time under Spanish, British, and French nominal jurisdiction, the Mississippi area was deeded to the British after the French and Indian War under the terms of the Treaty of Paris.

The Mississippi Territory was organized on April 7, 1798, from territory ceded by Georgia and South Carolina;

When cotton was king during the 1850s, Mississippi plantation owners—especially those of the Delta and Black Belt regions—became increasingly wealthy due to the high fertility of the soil and the high price of cotton on the international market. The severe wealth imbalances and the necessity of large-scale slave populations to sustain such income played a heavy role in both state politics and in the support for secession.

Mississippi was the second state to secede from the Union as one of the Confederate States of America on January 9, 1861. Under the terms of Reconstruction, Mississippi was readmitted to the Union on February 23, 1870.

Mississippi was considered to typify the Deep South during the era of Jim Crow. However, at the same time, Mississippi became a center of rich, quintessentially American music traditions: gospel music, jazz music, blues, and rock and roll all were invented, promulgated, or heavily developed by Mississippi musicians. Mississippi was also noted for its authors in the early twentieth century, especially William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams.

Mississippi was a focus of the American Civil Rights Movement. Nearly all white Mississippians, through their politicians and involvement in the White Citizens' Council movement, and the violent tactics of it's Ku Klux Klan members and sympathizers gave Mississippi a reputation as a reactionary state during the 1960s, a reputation which continues to this day as evidenced by the 2003 election of governor Haley Barbour and his involvement in groups like the Council of Conservative Citizens.

The state was the last to repeal prohibition and to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, in 1966 and 1995 respectively.

On August 17, 1969, Category 5 Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and causing US$1.5 billion in damage (1969 dollars). On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused even greater destruction across the entire 90 miles of Mississippi Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Alabama. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 10,653 people, and migration within the country produced a net loss of 10,578 people.

  • The 2000 Census reported Mississippi's population as 2,844,658 www.censusscope.org/us/s28/chart_popl.html.

Racial makeup and ancestry

The Census Bureau considers race and Hispanic origin to be two separate categories. The small Chinese population found in the Delta is descended from farm laborers brought there from California in the 1870s. The coastal fishing industry has attracted Southeast Asian refugees.

More than 98% of the white population of Mississippi is native-born, predominantly of Northern European descent. According to the 2000 census, the largest ancestries are American (14.2%), Irish (6.9%), English (6.1%), German (4.5%), and Italian (1.42%). Gambling towns in Mississippi include the Gulf Coast towns of Bay Saint Louis, Gulfport and Biloxi, and the Mississippi River towns of Tunica, Greenville, Vicksburg and Natchez. Before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, Mississippi was the second largest gambling state in the Union, ahead of New Jersey and behind Nevada.

On October 17, 2005, Governor Haley Barbour signed a bill into law that now allows casinos in Hancock and Harrison counties to rebuild on land (but within 800 feet of the water). The only exception is in Harrison County, where the new law states that casinos can be built to the southern boundary of U.S. Route 90.

Mississippi collects personal income tax within 3 tax brackets, ranging from 3% to 5%.

Transportation

Mississippi is served by six interstate highways:

                • and fourteen main U.S. Routes
  • U.S. Route 11
  • U.S. Route 45
  • U.S. Route 49
  • U.S. Route 51
  • U.S. Route 61
  • U.S. Route 65
  • U.S. Route 72
  • U.S. Route 78
  • U.S. Route 80
  • U.S. Route 82
  • U.S. Route 84
  • U.S. Route 90
  • U.S. Route 98
  • U.S. Route 278

as well as a system of State Highways. Two further interstate highways are proposed: Interstate 69 and Interstate 269.

For more information, visit the Mississippi Department of Transportation website.

Law and government



As with all other U.S. States and the federal government, Mississippi's government is based on the separation of legislative, executive and judicial power. Unlike the federal government, but like many other U.S. States, most of the heads of major executive departments are elected by the citizens of Mississippi rather than appointed by the governor.

(See: List of Governors of Mississippi)

(See: List of Lt. Governors of Mississippi)

(See: List of State Treasurers of Mississippi)

(See: Mississippi general election results, 2003)

Legislative authority resides in the state legislature, composed of the Senate and House of Representatives. Judges for the smaller courts are elected to four-year terms by the state's citizens who live within that court's jurisdiction.

At the federal level, Mississippi's two U.S. senators are Trent Lott (Republican) and Thad Cochran (Republican). As of the 2001 reapportionment, the state has four congressmen in the U.S. House of Representatives.

(See: List of United States Representatives from Mississippi)

Mississippi has 82 counties. Citizens of Mississippi counties elect the five members of their county Board of Supervisors from single-member districts, as well as other county officials.

(See: List of Mississippi counties)

Politics

Mississippi, like the rest of the American South, long supported the Democratic Party. Defeat in the Civil War at the hands of Abraham Lincoln, and the policies of Reconstruction, which included federally-appointed Republican governors, led to considerable white Southern resentment toward the Republican Party.

For 116 years (from 1876 to 1992), Mississippians only elected Democratic governors. However, since the 1960s the Republican Party has become competitive in statewide elections, and in recent years it has become dominant in the state's federal elections, winning the state's electoral votes in every election since 1980.

Mississippi is an Alcoholic beverage control state.

Major cities and towns

  • Jackson
  • Gulfport
  • Biloxi
  • Southaven
  • Natchez
  • Vicksburg
  • Columbus
  • Greenville
  • Greenwood
  • Kosciusko
  • Tupelo
  • Hattiesburg
  • Grenada
  • Clinton
  • Picayune
  • Bay St. Louis
  • Hernando
  • Moss Point
  • Meridian
  • Oxford
  • Laurel
  • McComb
  • Brandon
  • Clarksdale
  • Pearl
  • Pascagoula
  • Starkville
  • Canton
  • Cleveland


Mississippi City Rankings (U.S. Census Bureau estimates as of 2005)

1. Blacks and whites attended separate public schools in Mississippi until the 1960s, when they began to be integrated following a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that racially segregated public schools were unconstitutional. In 2004, Mississippi was ranked last among the fifty states in academic achievement by the American Legislative Exchange Council's Report Card on Education, with the lowest average ACT scores and spending per pupil in the nation.

Colleges, universities and community colleges

  • Alcorn State University
  • Belhaven College
  • Blue Mountain College
  • Coahoma Community College
  • Copiah-Lincoln Community College
  • Delta State University
  • East Central Community College
  • East Mississippi Community College
  • Hinds Community College
  • Holmes Community College
  • Itawamba Community College
  • Jackson State University
  • Jones County Junior College
  • Magnolia Bible College
  • Meridian Community College
  • Millsaps College
  • Mississippi College
  • Mississippi Delta Comunity College
  • Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College
  • Mississippi State University
  • Mississippi University for Women
  • Mississippi Valley State University
  • Northeast Mississippi Community College
  • Northwest Mississippi Community College
  • Pearl River Community College
  • Reformed Theological Seminary
  • Rust College
  • Southwest Mississippi Community College
  • Tougaloo College
  • University of Mississippi
  • University of Mississippi Medical Center
  • The University of Southern Mississippi
  • Wesley Biblical Seminary
  • Wesley College
  • William Carey College


Miscellaneous topics

The state takes its name from the Mississippi River, which flows along the western boundary. The name itself comes from either the Ojibwe, a Native American language spoken around the river's headwaters, or some other closely related Algonquian language, meaning "great river." Other nicknames attached to Mississippi are the Magnolia State and the Hospitality State.

  • Scouting in Mississippi

State symbols

State motto: "Virtute et Armis" (By Valor and Arms)

State song: "Go, Mississippi", adopted 1962

Patron saint: Our Lady of Sorrows

State flower and state tree: Magnolia

State bird: Mockingbird

State beverage: Milk

State fish: Largemouth Bass

State insect: Honeybee

State water mammal: Bottlenose Dolphin

State shell: Oyster

State fossil: A whale fossil nicknamed "Ziggy"

State land mammals: White-tailed Deer and Red Fox

State waterfowl: Wood duck

State stone: Petrified wood

State wildflower: Coreopsis

State butterfly: Spicebush Swallowtail

State dance: Square Dance

Statehood Quarter was minted in 2002.

Famous Mississippians

Mississippi has produced a number of notable and famous individuals, including authors William Faulkner and Eudora Welty, musician Elvis Presley, blues musicians B.B. King, Muddy Waters, and Robert Johnson, novelist John Grisham, entertainers Oprah Winfrey and Jim Henson, author Richard Wright, actor Morgan Freeman, playwright Tennessee Williams, rap music singer David Banner, punk metal band The Cooters, alternative rock band 3 Doors Down, opera singer Leontyne Price, athletes Brett Favre, Jerry Rice, Archie Manning, Walter Payton, and Roy Oswalt and country music singers Jimmie Rodgers, Tammy Wynette, LeAnn Rimes, Mandingo
and Faith Hill.

See List of Mississippians

References

Chronology

  • Key Dates:

  • 1948: Mississippi Chemical Corporation is organized as a farmers' cooperative under the leadership of Owen Cooper.
  • 1950: Company becomes first cooperative in the world to build its own nitrogen fertilizer plant.
  • 1966: Mississippi Chemical completes construction of high-tech ammonia plant in Yazoo City.
  • 1970: Company enters joint venture with First Mississippi Corporation, establishing Triad Chemicals Inc.
  • 1972: Company's annual sales climb over $100 million for the first time; double-contract sulfuric acid plant starts production in Pascagoula.
  • 1973: Cooper retires and is succeeded by Thomas C. Parry.
  • 1986: Founder Owen Cooper dies; subsidiary, Newsprint South, Inc., is formed.
  • 1987: Company begins construction of Newsprint South's state-of-the-art newsprint mill.
  • 1993: Parry retires and is succeed by Charles O. Dunn as CEO and president.
  • 1994: Mississippi Chemical is reorganized as a publicly held company and begins trading on NASDAQ; company sells Newsprint South.
  • 1996: Company begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange; buys two potash mines in New Mexico.
  • 1998: Company starts up joint venture with Farmland Industries, Inc., an ammonia manufacturing plant in Trinidad and Tobago.
  • 2000: Company buys IMC-Agrico Company's granular urea plant in Faustina, Louisiana.

Additional topics

Company HistoryChemical Products Manufacturing

This web site and associated pages are not associated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Mississippi Chemical Corporation and has no official or unofficial affiliation with Mississippi Chemical Corporation.