GREEN RIVER - General Chemical, one of the world's largest soda ash producers operating in southwest Wyoming, will be sold to a competing soda ash producer in India later this year, officials announced Friday.

Tata Chemicals Ltd., part of the massive India-based Tata Group, said the company has entered into "definitive agreements" to acquire the soda ash business of General Chemical Industrial Products Inc. from Harbinger Capital Partners.

The company will pay $1 billion for GCIP, according to Tata officials.

Harbinger is the majority shareholder of GCIP's subsidiary, General Chemical Soda Ash Partners Inc., the owner of the company's trona mine and soda ash facility located in the Green River Basin.

Officials said the transaction is still subject to shareholder and regulatory approval.

The unionized General Chemical is the world's fifth largest producer of soda ash and the second largest soda ash producer in North America. The company has an annual production capacity of 2.8 million short tons.

General officials could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon, and there was no answer at the United Steelworkers of America union hall.

Tata Chemicals officials said the purchase of General will provide Tata with access to some of the world's largest and most economically recoverable trona ore deposits and reserves. It will also give the company access to 100 or more global customers.

"This acquisition, together with its other global soda ash facilities, will give Tata Chemicals a unique market position," the company said in a release on its Web site. "The merger will provide Tata Chemicals with access to markets in North America, Latin America and the Far East, which complements (our) existing markets."

Officials said the acquisition will position Tata, a maker of the more expensive synthetic soda ash, into one of the largest soda ash producers worldwide.

General Chemical, a natural soda ash producer, is expected to now account for about 50 percent of Tata's overall soda ash production, officials said.

Tata Chemicals operates four other international soda ash manufacturing facilities located in India, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and in Kenya.

The company has made several moves in recent years to become a major player in the global soda ash market, according to Denis Kostick, an analyst who tracks the soda ash industry for the U.S. Geological Survey. The General Chemical purchase marks the second major buy for the Tata Group in the past 20 months.

In 2006, the company bought the Magadi Soda Co. in Kenya - Africa's largest soda ash manufacturer - and announced plans for a $97 million plant expansion of its soda ash plant.

Wyoming's soda ash producers have tangled with India before. In 1996, Tata and other members of the Indian soda ash industry obtained an injunction against U.S. soda ash imports. The industry accused Green River producers of implementing "predatory pricing" that aimed to monopolize the industry in India.

In 2002, however, an overseas court ruled against India's soda ash industry and reopened the country's market to U.S soda ash.

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