Icy temps mean dwindling road salt supplies

As bitterly cold temperatures grip much of the U.S. and New England continues to endure one of the snowiest winters in recent memory, salt companies are scrambling to keep up with an unrelenting surge in demand.

During the past four weeks, Morton Salt, one of the largest providers of road salt, shipped about double the amount of that material than it does during a typical winter, the Chicago-based company said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch.

With supplies constrained mainly on the East Coast, Morton has extended its hours of operation and is accelerating shipments because of the increased demand. However, the Salt Institute, an industry trade group, insists there isn't a road salt shortage even though some municipalities are rationing the mineral.

"At this point in the season, replenishing our customers' road salt supplies can be challenging from a supply chain perspective when demand surges and severe winter weather hits in multiple geographies for extended periods of time," Morton said. "Compounding this challenge is the limited availability of trucks to deliver the salt -- as many of these trucks are being utilized by other entities for snow removal and plowing services."

Other major road salt suppliers include Compass Minerals (CMP) and Cargill. In the fourth quarter, Compass, based in Overland Park, Kansas, reported a 38 percent increase in net income and a 12 percent increase in sales. Profit, excluding some costs in the salt business, rose 26 percent to $115.7 million.

Cargill, mostly known as an agribusiness giant, came under fire from officials in Hudson County, New Jersey last year, for failing to provide the road salt that had been promised. Officials from Compass and Cargill couldn't be immediately be reached for comment.

"We are getting many, many calls from other people's customers," said Lisa Stapleford, a vice president at Oceanport, a salt provider in Claymont, Delaware, adding that usually the seasonal demand for salt ends about now. "There is probably a little bit of nervousness but probably not as much as last year."

BSR Services, which provides snow-removal services in the St. Louis area, told CBS MoneyWatch that domestic salt prices this year are running "from 50 percent to 100 percent higher than last year's rate." In addition, it had such difficulty in obtaining road salt that it decided to import about 10,000 tons from Egypt. It's the first time in 30 years of operating that BSR has had to import salt from a foreign source rather than buy it from a nearby state. Other countries such as Peru, Chile, Poland Mexico and Brazil also supply the U.S. market.

Likewise, said Morton: "We have imported more salt than normal to serve our customers this winter. In fact, we were sourcing from Chile well before the winter season started in order to replenish our inventories and fill our customers' sheds, which were largely depleted by the harsh winter weather last season."

Snow removal can become a hot-button political issue for state and local businesses. According to data from the American Highway Users Alliance, a one-day major snowstorm can cost a state between $300 million to $700 million in direct and indirect costs.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct that Cargill's dispute with Hudson County, New Jersey, happened last winter.