One of the United States' few natural soda ash production sites is changing hands, and the new owner has no plans to bring soda ash output back. Searles Valley Minerals, Trona Railway Company, and Searles Domestic Water Company announced a definitive Asset Purchase Agreement with 5E Advanced Materials and its subsidiary 5E SVM, following a competitive, court-supervised sale process tied to the company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy case in Delaware.
The deal covers Searles Valley Minerals' production facilities, known as the Westend and Argus plants, along with roughly 9,000 acres of brine resources at Searles Lake, the Trona Railway short-line railroad, and potable water production and distribution infrastructure serving the surrounding community. All of the assets are located across San Bernardino, Kern, and Inyo Counties in California. Consideration for the deal totals just over $3.35 million in cash, 8.3 million shares of 5E common stock, and a $6.22 million senior unsecured note, with 5E also securing $10 million in bridge financing from its parent company to fund the acquisition and cover working capital.
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The Debtors sought court approval of the agreement at a hearing before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, with the transaction expected to close in October, subject to that approval and other customary conditions, including authorization from the Surface Transportation Board for the railroad assets.
Notably, the announcement makes no mention of resuming soda ash production. Searles Valley Minerals had already halted soda ash operations earlier in the year to preserve liquidity, and the company's own statement describes Westend's ongoing output going forward as boron, sodium sulfate, and other specialty products, not soda ash. That confirms the site's exit from the domestic soda ash supply base is structural rather than temporary, at least under the incoming ownership's stated plans.
For buyers, the development formalizes what has effectively already been a reduction in US natural soda ash supply diversity. The United States has only a small number of soda ash producers, concentrated mainly in Wyoming, plus this now-repositioned California operation. With Searles Valley Minerals' production assets moving toward borate and mineral output instead, buyers who had any exposure to California-sourced natural soda ash, directly or through blended supply arrangements, will need to confirm sourcing continuity with their suppliers.
The company's president framed the sale as a positive outcome for continuity of the broader operation, noting that the transaction preserves over 150 years of continuous mining activity at the site, retains a meaningful share of the existing workforce, and keeps water utility service running for the town of Trona without interruption. Those assurances apply to the site's ongoing role as a mineral and water services operation, not to any resumption of soda ash output.
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom served as the company's general bankruptcy counsel on the transaction, with Ankura Consulting Group as financial advisor and Lazard as investment banker.
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