Compass Minerals reported below-average first-quarter 2021 winter weather activity in its North American-served market. When coupled with fourth-quarter 2020 activity, this resulted in a slightly below average winter for the full season ended March 2021.

Eleven representative cities in the company’s primary North American highway deicing service area reported 100 snow events during the first quarter of 2021, which was approximately 8% below the 10-year average and 18% above first-quarter 2020 results.

As previously forecast, highway deicing sales volumes in the first quarter of 2021 increased from 2020 levels. The company sold approximately 4.6 million tons of highway deicing salt products in the first quarter of 2021 compared to 3.1 million tons in the prior-year period. A combination of higher North American bid season commitments, strong winter weather in the U.K., and severe winter weather in North America during February drove this volume increase.

“Despite below average snow activity for the first quarter, we experienced solid demand from our U.S. highway deicing customer portfolio as a number of ice storms impacted our markets in addition to the snow event activity in the first quarter. We expect this healthy start to the year likely normalized customer inventories throughout North America, setting up a constructive backdrop for the upcoming bid season. Comparatively, this represents the highest first-quarter sales volumes for our highway deicing products since 2014,” said Kevin S. Crutchfield, president and CEO. “In addition, we have achieved a number of milestones in recent weeks, including two announced definitive sale agreements to optimize our asset portfolio and the successful negotiation of a new, five-year collective bargaining agreement at our Goderich mine. Through these strategic actions, I believe we are building positive momentum as we head into the remainder of 2021.”

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