CN's Scheduled Potash Service drives new supply chain efficiencies for key customers

SASKATOON, May 3 /CNW Telbec/ - CN (TSX: CNR) (NYSE:CNI) said its Scheduled Potash Service has increased supply chain efficiencies for producers in Western Canada and provided them quicker access to markets.

CN's Scheduled Potash Service is focused on an end-to-end management of the supply chain in collaboration with customers. To drive new efficiencies, CN innovated with a tool giving sales and operations personnel clear visibility to customer orders for planning rail assets and scheduling shipments. With this approach, CN is working closely with its customers to minimize delays, expedite shipments, and provide supply chain balance between placing empties and picking up loads.

CN also instituted a new potash fleet management team to work with customers to improve distribution of empty private hopper cars to mines for reloading. This initiative, with locomotives cycling between CN's potash hub in Winnipeg and mines in Saskatchewan, has reduced switching requirements and car dwell times at terminals. As a result, CN has significantly reduced car cycles from mine to destination and return.

Jean-Jacques Ruest, executive vice-president and chief marketing officer of CN, said: CN's Scheduled Potash Service is the next chapter in our supply chain collaboration agenda, mirroring our Scheduled Grain Service and our comprehensive management of coal movements from Western Canadian mines to export terminals.

By scheduling potash service, we have reduced car cycle times for privately owned hoppers from mine to destination and return to mine for loading by approximately 25 per cent - a huge gain in efficiency for both CN and our customers. This improvement helps our potash customers get to market faster and move more bulk product. CN has also benefited from the additional capacity provided by these efficiency gains.

Bob Felgenhauer, vice-president, transportation and distribution, of PotashCorp, said: CN's Scheduled Potash Service has brought a new level of supply chain efficiency to our operations, allowing us to more reliably serve our customers. This is very important to us. Looking ahead, CN will play a vital role in our logistics as we continue to grow our business.

CN is a significant player in the Canadian rail market for fertilizers, with production centred primarily in Western Canada. CN serves, or has access to, all major potash mines in Saskatchewan. The majority of Canadian potash moves by rail to markets in the United States or to ports for export to overseas markets.

Ruest said: CN's Scheduled Potash Service is an example of commercially developed supply chain innovation that benefits Canadian producers. CN is fully committed to this agenda of market-driven service gains - it's the right way to do business and the right way to move Canada forward in the global economy.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain information included in this news release constitutes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and under Canadian securities laws. CN cautions that, by their nature, these forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. The Company cautions that its assumptions may not materialize and that current economic conditions render such assumptions, although reasonable at the time they were made, subject to greater uncertainty. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results of performance of the Company or the rail industry to be materially different from the outlook or any future results or performance implied by such statements. Important factors that could affect the above forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the effects of general economic and business conditions, industry competition, inflation, currency and interest rate fluctuations, changes in fuel prices, legislative and/or regulatory developments, compliance with environmental laws and regulations, actions by regulators, various events which could disrupt operations, including natural events such as severe weather, droughts, floods and earthquakes, labor negotiations and disruptions, environmental claims, uncertainties of investigations, proceedings or other types of claims and litigation, risks and liabilities arising from derailments, and other risks detailed from time to time in reports filed by CN with securities regulators in Canada and the United States. Reference should be made to Management's Discussion and Analysis in CN's annual and interim reports, Annual Information Form and Form 40-F filed with Canadian and U.S. securities regulators, available on CN's website, for a summary of major risks.

CN assumes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect future events, changes in circumstances, or changes in beliefs, unless required by applicable Canadian securities laws. In the event CN does update any forward-looking statement, no inference should be made that CN will make additional updates with respect to that statement, related maters, or any other forward-looking statement.

CN - Canadian National Railway Company and its operating railway subsidiaries - spans Canada and mid-America, from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to the Gulf of Mexico, serving the ports of Vancouver, Prince Rupert, B.C., Montreal, Halifax, New Orleans, and Mobile, Ala., and the key metropolitan areas of Toronto, Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Duluth, Minn./Superior, Wis., Green Bay, Wis., Minneapolis/St. Paul, Memphis, St. Louis, and Jackson, Miss., with connections to all points in North America. For more information on CN, visit the company's website at www.cn.ca.

Headquartered in Saskatchewan, Canada, Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc. (PotashCorp) is the world's largest fertilizer company by capacity, producing the three primary crop nutrients - potash, phosphate and nitrogen. With five potash operations in Saskatchewan, and one in New Brunswick, it is responsible for about 20 per cent of global capacity and is the world's leading potash producer. Its operations and business interests span seven countries, making PotashCorp an international enterprise and a key player in meeting the growing challenge of feeding the world.