Lawrence’s Farmland nitrogen fertilizer plant still may be on standby, but its plant manager no longer is.

Dick Lind, plant manager at the Lawrence facility for the past 12 years, retired from the company Friday, and there are no current plans to replace him, company officials said.

The plant, located just east of Lawrence on Kansas Highway 10, stopped production of fertilizer more than a year ago and has laid off most of the plant’s 100 member work force.

Lind said the fact the company decided not to fill his position isn’t a sure sign the company will never restart the plant.

“I don’t think I quite see it that way,” Lind said. “But I do see it as a situation where they are in the shutdown mode and probably plan to be that way for quite some time.”

Sherlyn Manson, director of corporate communications for Farmland, also said the company’s decision to leave the plant manager position vacant wasn’t a sign the company had given up on the Lawrence facility.

She said the plant still would have a top manager on site because the leader of the entire company’s fertilizer division has his office at the plant. Manson said the decision to not fill the position also was related to the company’s action to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday.

“It makes sense because we are kind of trying to hold our costs down right now,” Manson said.

Lind, who worked at the Lawrence plant for 22 years and for the company for 39 years, said he thinks the Lawrence plant could reopen if the downward trend in fertilizer sales reverses itself.

“If market conditions improve, I think there is still a good possibility the plant would start back up,” Lind said. “But the problem is there’s no timeline on when that may happen.”

A turnaround in the fertilizer market is far from certain, Lind said. Farmland’s fertilizer sales have been affected by bad weather that has reduced demand and from tougher overseas competition.

Manson said the of cost of natural gas, a major component in producing nitrogen fertilizer, is much cheaper in several foreign countries.

“In the states, the cost of natural gas is based on the home fuel market,” Manson said. “But in the Caribbean, for example, the cost of natural gas is based on the demands of the fertilizer industry.”

Farmland operates a plant in Trinidad, an island off the coast of Venezuela, to take advantage of the cheaper natural gas supply. It also has a plant in Coffeyville that uses a bi-product of a nearby oil refinery instead of natural gas.

“All of that makes it tough to predict what the market is going to look like and that is really what the status of the Lawrence plant is contingent upon,” Manson said.

The plant employs 14 workers who keep the plant in a condition that would allow it to resume production within a couple of months if market conditions warrant it. Manson said there are no plans to cut those jobs.

Lind, 62, said he had been planning his retirement for several months, and it was not directly related to Farmland’s bankruptcy filing.

“It was just a combination of factors,” Lind said. “Going through the shutdown mode of the operation wasn’t any fun, and I was old enough, so I just decided to do something different.

Lind said he plans to remain in Lawrence.