GREEN RIVER - Federal officials say American financing won't be used to help expand Kenya's fledgling soda ash industry so it can better compete with soda ash producers in southwest Wyoming.

U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., said Friday the U.S. Export-Import Bank will not help an American locomotive company finance the sale, refurbishment and export of eight locomotives to a soda ash facility in Kenya.

Ex-Im Bank officials told Enzi this week that the locomotive company had officially withdrawn its application for financing. Enzi called the move good news for Wyoming's soda ash producers.

He said it will help protect Wyoming jobs in an industry struggling with a relatively flat growth rate, with declining prices and a declining employee numbers, and facing tough competition globally from emerging soda ash giants such as China.

"If these locomotives go to Kenya, it will strengthen that country's industry not just today, but for years in the future," said Enzi, a senior member of the Senate Banking Committee.

"We want to help American companies, but not if it costs Wyoming jobs," Enzi said in a news release. "That's one less thing people in the Wyoming soda ash business will have to worry about."

Wyoming is a major producer of soda ash, which is used in making a number of products such as glass and detergents. The four international producers in Sweetwater County's Green River Basin produce about 11 million tons of soda ash annually, which accounts for about 95 percent of domestic soda ash production.

Kenya only produced about 360,000 tons of soda ash in 2005, according to U.S. Geological Survey figures. The country has an estimated 7 million tons of soda ash reserves, however.

The Ex-Im Bank supports the financing of U.S. goods and services, turning export opportunities into transactions that maintain and create jobs. The bank assumes credit and country risks that the private sector is unable or unwilling to accept.

In February 2006, the Ex-Im Bank received the application for a six-year loan to finance the export of eight American-built locomotives, valued at $14.4 million, to the Magadi Soda Co. of Kenya.

The locomotives were to replace 1970s-vintage locomotives currently used by the Magadi company - which is Africa's largest soda ash manufacturer - to increase the company's overall transportation capacity.

The Magadi company has a small soda ash production plant located on the shores of Lake Magadi, about 70 miles southwest of Nairobi. The lake lies in the Great Rift Valley of southern Kenya.

The company scoops soda from the surface of the lake's salt flats and produces a less-refined, cruder version of the soda ash that is produced in southwest Wyoming. Kenyan soda ash is primarily used in the manufacture of detergents, glass products such as bottles and jars, leather tanning, and pulp and paper products.

The company recently announced plans for a $97 million expansion of its plant on Lake Magadi. The expansion would nearly double the company's annual soda ash production to an estimated 700,000 tons per year.

The company wants the refurbished locomotives to help move the increased soda ash production from the Lake Magadi plant to the coastal port of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean.

Enzi said he met with Ex-Im Bank Chairman Jim Lambright and urged him to oppose the proposal. Enzi told Lambright that helping Kenyan soda ash production would be done to the detriment of Sweetwater County workers and soda ash companies.

Wyoming's soda ash industry faces increasingly strong competition from overseas producers, especially China, which for the first time in a century surpassed the United States in 2003 as the world's leader in soda ash production. China's cheap labor and lax pollution laws give the country a leg up on Wyoming producers.

Green River's four producers are the largest employers in both Sweetwater and Uinta counties, with about 2,200 employees. Miners dig trona from beds located 800 to 2,000 feet underground, and the trona ore is processed above ground into soda ash.

Southwest Wyoming bureau reporter Jeff Gearino can be reached at 307-875-5359 or at gearino@tribcsp.com.