* Q4 EPS $0.19 vs year ago $0.33

* Realized potash price dips to $479 per tonne

Feb 13 (Reuters) - U.S. fertilizer producer Intrepid Potash Inc reported lower quarterly profit on Wednesday as its average realized price for the crop nutrient potash slipped.

Potash is a key fertilizer ingredient that farmers use to maximize yields. Global prices weakened late in 2012, and Intrepid's realized price declined to $479 per tonne in the fourth quarter from $548 a tonne in the year-earlier quarter.

Denver, Colorado-based Intrepid, the largest producer of U.S. potash, reported after normal trading hours a fourth-quarter net profit of $14.5 million, or 19 cents per share, compared with a profit of $24.9 million, or 33 cents per basic share, a year earlier.

Revenue rose 6 percent to $110.9 million, with a larger quarter-over-quarter volume of potash sales.

Adjusted earnings per share were 26 cents, just ahead of the 24 cents a share that the Street was expecting, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Intrepid operates two production facilities in Utah and three in New Mexico.

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Editing by Tim Dobbyn) Keywords: INTREPID RESULTS/

(rod.nickel@thomsonreuters.com)(1 204 230 6043)(Reuters Messaging: rod.nickel.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)

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