PhosAgro Plans Apatit Capex of RUB 6,990 mln in 2012 Moscow - PhosAgro (MICEX-RTS, LSE: PHOR) ("the Company"), a leading global vertically integrated phosphate-based fertilizer producer, announces that the planned 2012 capital expenditure budget for Apatit is RUB 6,990 million (excl. VAT).
The 2012 investment program for Apatit was approved on 30 December 2011 by the management board of PhosAgro AG, which acts as the management company for Apatit. This investment program is intended to support the maintenance and development of Apatit’s resource base, beneficiation capacities and production infrastructure. The program is expected to result in higher production capacities, greater efficiency, as well as improved industrial, environmental and fire safety.
Main Projects:
Construction of new mining capacity to increase apatite-nepheline ore extraction at Kirovsky and Rasvumchorrsky mines.
Planned investments into the development of the Kirovsky mine in 2012 will focus on underground and surface complexes for Mineshaft #2. This shaft is expected to start production in 2015, and to increase the mine’s total capacity by two million tonnes of ore per annum (the equivalent of approximately 600 kt of apatite concentrate), for a total of more than 14 million tonnes of ore per annum. Construction of the +90 metres and +170 metres levels, as well as the underground crushing unit #2 will also continue.
Technical upgrades to Apatite-Nepheline Beneficiation Plants #2 and #3 (ANOF-2 and ANOF-3) to increase apatite concentrate production efficiency.
In 2012 Apatit plans to invest in projects using cutting edge engineering solutions and high-output equipment in areas like crushing and classification of apatite-nepheline ores, with the goal of decreasing production costs.
As part of the full-scale modernization program at ANOF-2, Apatit plans to upgrade the thickening and filtration processing units. At ANOF-3 several investment projects are underway, including: upgrades to automated production systems at the turbo compressor station and in the reagents unit; installation of high-frequency screens for the classification system in the ore crushing cycle (expected reduction in electricity consumption of up to 38 mln kWh per year).
Implementation of safer emulsion explosives system in underground mines (2011-2013).
The major part of the work on implementing an emulsion explosives system is planned for 2012. This includes purchasing and installing equipment to enable mechanical arming of emulsion explosives in the Kirovsky and Rasvumchorrsky mines. This investment program is intended to reduce costs related to the post-detonation processing of oversized materials, as well as to significantly increase the safety of blasting work.
Development of transportation infrastructure and expansion of own rolling stock for transportation of apatite-nepheline concentrate.
Apatit plans to obtain new hopper cars and to conduct comprehensive maintenance of the intra-plant railways as part of its 2012-2016 five-year program. In addition, planned upgrades to the mining fleet dispatch system are designed to improve efficiency by decreasing idling time, fuel consumption and rubber use.
Planning and surveying, scientific research and design engineering for further development of the resource base.
In addition to the construction and modernization of mining and beneficiation capacities, PhosAgro and Apatit plan to work towards achieving the full potential of apatite-nepheline ore by increasing the production of nepheline concentrate and developing technology for the extraction of rare earth elements.
Apatit plans to finance its capital expenditure program with its own cash as well as borrowings.
fuente: http://www.phosagro.com/media/pressreleases/text1503.html
viernes, 30 de diciembre de 2011
miércoles, 28 de diciembre de 2011
El mercado del potasio como fertilizante aumenta y sus productores ganan mas de lo esperado este 2011
By Judy McKinnon
Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan's POT -0.20% third-quarter earnings more than doubled and gross margin topped $1 billion, as strong demand and higher prices for key fertilizer nutrients continued to fuel results.
The Saskatoon, Sask.-based company, the world's largest potash producer, said gross margin more than doubled to $1.1 billion, including a near record $700 million from its potash segment. Phosphate and nitrogen gross margins were also significantly stronger.
Potash sales volumes reached 2.2 million metric tons in the latest quarter and potash production was a third-quarter record at 1.9 million tons, with realized potash prices more than tripling to $451 a ton.
The company earned $826 million or 94 cents a share in its latest quarter, in line with the Thomson Reuters mean estimate and within the company's projected range of 80 cents-$1 a share. A year earlier, it earned $343 million or 38 cents it earned a year earlier.
Sales jumped to $2.32 billion from $1.58 billion, beating the $2.17 billion analysts were expecting.
Potash Corp. has had several quarters of strong results as rising global food demand continues to fuel crop-nutrient sales.
The company is projecting 2011 potash gross margin of $2.8-$3.1 billion, while combined phosphate and nitrogen gross margins for the year are forecast in the range of $1.4-$1.7 billion.
Potash Corp. backed its projections for full-year earnings of $3.40-$3.80 a share.fuente: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/potash-corp-3rd-quarter-profit-more-than-doubles-2011-10-27
Vale S.A. se hace con casi el 99% de la produccion de fertilizantes en el Brazil
RIO DE JANEIRO -(MarketWatch)- Brazilian mining company Vale SA (VALE, VALE5.BR) is expected to be successful in Monday's bid to buy out minority shareholders in its fertilizers company Vale Fertilizantes SA , market analysts said Friday.
"Vale should be able to buy out a large part of the shares in order to delist the company," said Pedro Galdi of SLW Corretora. "Most of the minority shareholders are small investors. Vale will be able to create a new fertilizers company which will facilitate investment decisions."
Vale, which currently holds about 69% of the total preferred shares and more than 99% of the ordinary shares issued by Vale Fertilizantes, announced plans earlier this year to delist the company, which is traded on Brazil's Bovespa stock exchange. An auction price of 25 reais a share is being offered for both ordinary and preferred shares, for a total cost of about BRL2.2 billion ($1.22 billion).
"The market's in favor," said a Sao Paulo-based analyst who declined to be identified. "Vale's fertilizers strategy won't change with this, but its fertilizers business should gain more value."
Vale Fertilizantes was formed to group together the Brazilian fertilizers assets of Bunge, Yara and Mosaic groups, which Vale acquired in 2010 for $5.829 billion.
Vale announced in late November that it plans to invest 9.6% of its total planned 2012 budget of $21.4 billion in the fertilizers area, both in Brazil and abroad. Vale has defined fertilizers as a strategic growth area along with copper and coal, the company's Chief Financial Officer Tito Martins said this week at a meeting with analysts and investors in London.
"In the third quarter fertilizers represented just 6% of Vale's sales, a small part of the total," Galdi said. "But the tendency is for this to grow. There could be new [fertilizer] acquisitions."
Vale said late November it plans to increase its fertilizer-materials output to 650,000 tons of potash and 8 million tons of phosphate rock in 2012.
Vale's biggest new fertilizers investments are currently outside Brazil. Vale will spend $1.08 billion in 2012 to develop a potash mine at Rio Colorado in Argentina that is expected to cost a total of $5.9 billion and start up in the second half of 2014 to produce 4.3 million tons a year of potash.
In 2010, the company started producing phosphate rock at a major mine at Bayovar in Peru. Another phosphate rock project at Evate in Mozambique is at the feasibility-study stage.
In Brazil, Vale recently reached an accord with oil producer Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PBR, PETR4.BR), or Petrobras, that will allow Vale to continue to produce potash at a site in Brazil's Sergipe state.
Vale is Brazil's sole potash producer with annual capacity of 750,000 metric tons at the Taquari Vassouras mine in Sergipe state, northeast Brazil, which is owned by Petrobras. The mine, which is currently operating below its full capacity, has a $174-per-ton operating cost and a productive life of just nine years.
Vale continues to discuss with Petrobras the possibility of producing potash at Carnalita, another mine site in Sergipe, which is also owned by the oil company. Carnalita, which has a potential to produce 1.2 million tons a year of potash, is located on land where Petrobras also has discovered oil.
Brazil is the world's second-largest agricultural market after the U.S. and its fertilizer market is expanding at a rate of 6% a year, according to Vale's head of investor relations, Roberto Castello Branco.
The director said this week in London that the company's move into potash is an opportunity for the company to diversify its customer base geographically. Vale intends to sell a large amount of its potash to Brazil.
"Brazil is for fertilizer what China is for metals," Castello Branco said. China is the world's largest consumer of many of the world's metals due to its fast-paced rate of urbanization and industrialization.
Mosaic Co. reducira su produccion de fosfatos en un 10% para marzo del 2012
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Mosaic Corp. said late Wednesday it will trim its quarterly finished phosphate production by about 10% because of current market prices. The fertilizer maker said it will curtail production of finished phosphate by up to 250,000 tons until the end of March. In the company's last quarterly statement, it reported producing 2.2 million tons of finished phosphate. "The current spot prices in this market do not reflect our outlook for the business, nor do we think they are sustainable," said Jim Prokopanko, Mosaic chief executive, in a statement.
fuente: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mosaic-to-cut-phosphate-production-by-about-10-2011-12-28
fuente: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mosaic-to-cut-phosphate-production-by-about-10-2011-12-28
viernes, 23 de diciembre de 2011
IFC entrega prestamo de 40 Millones $us a la MBAC para expandir la produccion de fertilizantes en Brazil
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is providing a $40 million loan to MBAC Fertilizer Corporation to expand the company’s production facilities, which will help create jobs and increase food production.
The investment is part of IFC's effort to promote private sector development in the Amazon and Cerrado regions in Brazil. IFC’s loan will be used for the development of the Itafós Arraias SSP project, which includes a phosphate mine, a processing plant, and related infrastructure in central Brazil, near the border of Goiás and Tocantins states. MBAC’s close proximity to phosphate resources and its local customer base makes its fertilizer products a cost-effective alternative to imported phosphate fertilizers that dominate much of Brazil’s agricultural sector.
“We are extremely pleased with the continued support we have received from IFC,” said Antenor Silva, President and CEO of MBAC. “They have played an important role in mobilizing the financial resources needed to finance our project and aggressively pursue our start-up schedule and commence production.”
IFC’s loan to MBAC follows an equity investment of 33 million Canadian that IFC made in the company in September 2011.
“MBAC shares IFC’s commitment to promoting best practice environmental and social standards in Brazil’s fertilizer sector,” said Paolo Martelli, IFC Director for Latin America. “We look forward to a long-term partnership as MBAC expands its operations and increases its capacity to supply Brazil’s agricultural sector, an important source of economic growth for the country.”
The agribusiness sector, including fertilizers, is a key strategic priority for IFC as the wacklorld tes to growing challenge of food security.The investment in MBAC reflects IFC’s commitment to support viable local companies that will help further develop Brazil’s agribusiness value chain
lunes, 19 de diciembre de 2011
El FOSFATO de Marruecos (parte V)
Morocco, meanwhile, offers subsidies, tax credits, and land grants to settlers, a policy that has drawn comparisons to Israel. For its part, the U.S., in addition to needing the phosphate, sees Morocco as an ally in the war against terrorism. Last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reaffirmed U.S. support for Morocco's plan of "limited autonomy" for the territory, which stops short of the independence demanded by the Polisario.
To his own people, at least, the King is generous, and the planned Mine Verte is but one display of the country's growing wealth. In January, OCP Chief Executive Officer Mostafa Terrab stood with the King and announced another green project in Benguerir, also a mining town on the Plateau des Phosphates. The planned city's buildings will be LEED-certified, and its roads will hum with electric buses and bikes in designated lanes. At its heart will be the new Mohammed VI Polytechnic University.
Béatrice Montagnier finished her Mine Verte consulting contract last year, but her employer, Horwath, has a small office in Rabat and is working on other projects. The King opened the Royal Mansour Marrakech hotel this year, with private riads—the traditional style of home with a courtyard and garden—going for $2,200 per night. For Khouribga, Montagnier has settled on three stars for the hotel, but says the final room tally awaits approval by OCP. Architects put the total price on the Mine Verte at €665 million ($937 million).
Khouribga's active mines begin about 6 miles south of the proposed museum, where powdery ravines pass underneath the bridges of the N11 highway. Out there, Founoun Mohammed, 48, is a subcontractor overseeing the first stages of a pipeline which will deliver phosphate in slurry form from Khouribga to the port of Jorf Lasfar south of Casablanca, 146 miles away. In jeans, an orange safety vest, and a matching helmet, he points out the path trucks loaded with rock take from the mine up to the plant where concentrated phosphate is separated from the rock. In a few years the phosphate will go straight into the pipeline to be processed by coastal fertilizer factories serving Brazil, India, and Pakistan.
Mohammed seems to embody the confidence of a country that finds itself on a gold mine. After work he settles down at the back of a favorite restaurant and talks business over seafood paella. A bottle of Moroccan wine is not to his liking, and he orders a French red for the table. "Khouribga is the world capital of phosphates," he says, "but we want to use tourism to make it something more. People will come from Europe, the United States, everywhere to see Khouribga. It will raise the level of the city." He is in high spirits and pours a glass of wine for the waiter, who tosses it back in a single gulp. Mohammed says he loves his country: He is safe and has a good job, what else can he ask for? "The King," he says, "is a gentleman."
fuente: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_46/b4203080895976_page_5.htm
To his own people, at least, the King is generous, and the planned Mine Verte is but one display of the country's growing wealth. In January, OCP Chief Executive Officer Mostafa Terrab stood with the King and announced another green project in Benguerir, also a mining town on the Plateau des Phosphates. The planned city's buildings will be LEED-certified, and its roads will hum with electric buses and bikes in designated lanes. At its heart will be the new Mohammed VI Polytechnic University.
Béatrice Montagnier finished her Mine Verte consulting contract last year, but her employer, Horwath, has a small office in Rabat and is working on other projects. The King opened the Royal Mansour Marrakech hotel this year, with private riads—the traditional style of home with a courtyard and garden—going for $2,200 per night. For Khouribga, Montagnier has settled on three stars for the hotel, but says the final room tally awaits approval by OCP. Architects put the total price on the Mine Verte at €665 million ($937 million).
Khouribga's active mines begin about 6 miles south of the proposed museum, where powdery ravines pass underneath the bridges of the N11 highway. Out there, Founoun Mohammed, 48, is a subcontractor overseeing the first stages of a pipeline which will deliver phosphate in slurry form from Khouribga to the port of Jorf Lasfar south of Casablanca, 146 miles away. In jeans, an orange safety vest, and a matching helmet, he points out the path trucks loaded with rock take from the mine up to the plant where concentrated phosphate is separated from the rock. In a few years the phosphate will go straight into the pipeline to be processed by coastal fertilizer factories serving Brazil, India, and Pakistan.
Mohammed seems to embody the confidence of a country that finds itself on a gold mine. After work he settles down at the back of a favorite restaurant and talks business over seafood paella. A bottle of Moroccan wine is not to his liking, and he orders a French red for the table. "Khouribga is the world capital of phosphates," he says, "but we want to use tourism to make it something more. People will come from Europe, the United States, everywhere to see Khouribga. It will raise the level of the city." He is in high spirits and pours a glass of wine for the waiter, who tosses it back in a single gulp. Mohammed says he loves his country: He is safe and has a good job, what else can he ask for? "The King," he says, "is a gentleman."
fuente: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_46/b4203080895976_page_5.htm
El FOSFATO de Marruecos (parte IV)
Western Sahara is a disputed territory. It's also where Morocco's best phosphate lies. The region known to the King as "Moroccan Sahara" begins just south of the fishing village of Tarfaya on the Atlantic coast. The U.N. calls it "the non-self-governing territory of Western Sahara" and deems it "occupied." It's a place where phosphate rumbles to the coast on the world's longest conveyor belt, while tanks and soldiers roam alongside, defending the shipments from Sahrawi separatists.
When Spain withdrew from Morocco in 1975, some 350,000 Moroccans marched into Western Sahara with tents on their backs. The native Sahrawi fought back for 16 years under the leadership of the Algerian-backed Polisario rebels, signing a cease-fire in 1991. The U.N. continues to monitor the agreement with 215 uniformed peacekeepers, but a planned vote on self-determination has been repeatedly delayed. Today, approximately 90,000 Sahrawi live in refugee camps in Algeria, separated from their families in Moroccan-controlled territory by a 1,400-mile-long berm dotted with land mines.
In Western Sahara, rarely visited by North Americans, one finds the flip side of the optimism on display at Khouribga. Driving in and out of the principal city of Laayoune, one passes not one but two sets of checkpoints. Police in heavy coats haunt chaotic roundabouts in the desert town, and an attempt to photograph the clay-colored domes of the Catholic church—a reminder of the region's Spanish heritage—is met with a barrage of questions from a barrel-chested Moroccan soldier in green, followed by an order to move on. Laayoune has an official tourist office, unsigned and hidden from the street by a high wall, and a visit by two Americans was surprising to the attendant there. She had no printed materials to offer.
OCP reports that just 2 percent of Morocco's phosphate lies in the Phousboucraa mine at Bou Craa in Western Sahara, and that it accounts for 6 percent of sales. Zouaoui says in an e-mail: "In 27 of the 33 years from 1976 to 2008, Phousboucraa's net contribution to OCP was negative." Yet because the rock there is of the highest quality in the country, the mine produces 11 percent of the country's total output.
The U.S. Census Bureau collects import data on Moroccan phosphate rock coming from the disputed territory, but it suppresses data on some shipments, according to Stephen M. Jasinski, the phosphate specialist at the U.S. Geological Survey. This is done at the request of U.S.-based importers, he says, a phenomenon he has not observed with mineral commodities from other nations. He adds that he has "never been able to get a straight answer" from the Census Bureau about the Western Sahara data. They may be trying to avoid the trouble given companies in Australia and Norway, who have been pressured into promising not to use phosphate mined in Western Sahara. In August, Mosaic told the advocacy group Western Sahara Resource Watch that it has stopped buying rock from the territory and has no plans to renew shipments.
Eddia Sidi Ahmed Moussa is a Sahrawi and former miner turned labor activist who lives in a compound made of concrete block in Laayoune. A slight, 60-year-old man with a frosting of white beard and a perfectly bald head, Moussa sits on the floor in a blue robe, pounding the air and gesturing with his fists as he speaks. He tells of the days of the Spanish empire when the mines employed over 1,000 Sahrawi, and they were paid European salaries. He was a welder and later a firefighter, and the work was good. Today the mine employs fewer than 200 Sahrawis and recruits most new employees from Morocco. Despite the somber topic of conversation, the atmosphere in the house is boisterous as veiled women giggle and banter in Arabic and one of Moussa's relatives displays his palm-reading skills. Every Sahrawi wants independence, Moussa asserts: "We want to live on our own resources."
fuente : http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_46/b4203080895976_page_4.htm
When Spain withdrew from Morocco in 1975, some 350,000 Moroccans marched into Western Sahara with tents on their backs. The native Sahrawi fought back for 16 years under the leadership of the Algerian-backed Polisario rebels, signing a cease-fire in 1991. The U.N. continues to monitor the agreement with 215 uniformed peacekeepers, but a planned vote on self-determination has been repeatedly delayed. Today, approximately 90,000 Sahrawi live in refugee camps in Algeria, separated from their families in Moroccan-controlled territory by a 1,400-mile-long berm dotted with land mines.
In Western Sahara, rarely visited by North Americans, one finds the flip side of the optimism on display at Khouribga. Driving in and out of the principal city of Laayoune, one passes not one but two sets of checkpoints. Police in heavy coats haunt chaotic roundabouts in the desert town, and an attempt to photograph the clay-colored domes of the Catholic church—a reminder of the region's Spanish heritage—is met with a barrage of questions from a barrel-chested Moroccan soldier in green, followed by an order to move on. Laayoune has an official tourist office, unsigned and hidden from the street by a high wall, and a visit by two Americans was surprising to the attendant there. She had no printed materials to offer.
OCP reports that just 2 percent of Morocco's phosphate lies in the Phousboucraa mine at Bou Craa in Western Sahara, and that it accounts for 6 percent of sales. Zouaoui says in an e-mail: "In 27 of the 33 years from 1976 to 2008, Phousboucraa's net contribution to OCP was negative." Yet because the rock there is of the highest quality in the country, the mine produces 11 percent of the country's total output.
The U.S. Census Bureau collects import data on Moroccan phosphate rock coming from the disputed territory, but it suppresses data on some shipments, according to Stephen M. Jasinski, the phosphate specialist at the U.S. Geological Survey. This is done at the request of U.S.-based importers, he says, a phenomenon he has not observed with mineral commodities from other nations. He adds that he has "never been able to get a straight answer" from the Census Bureau about the Western Sahara data. They may be trying to avoid the trouble given companies in Australia and Norway, who have been pressured into promising not to use phosphate mined in Western Sahara. In August, Mosaic told the advocacy group Western Sahara Resource Watch that it has stopped buying rock from the territory and has no plans to renew shipments.
Eddia Sidi Ahmed Moussa is a Sahrawi and former miner turned labor activist who lives in a compound made of concrete block in Laayoune. A slight, 60-year-old man with a frosting of white beard and a perfectly bald head, Moussa sits on the floor in a blue robe, pounding the air and gesturing with his fists as he speaks. He tells of the days of the Spanish empire when the mines employed over 1,000 Sahrawi, and they were paid European salaries. He was a welder and later a firefighter, and the work was good. Today the mine employs fewer than 200 Sahrawis and recruits most new employees from Morocco. Despite the somber topic of conversation, the atmosphere in the house is boisterous as veiled women giggle and banter in Arabic and one of Moussa's relatives displays his palm-reading skills. Every Sahrawi wants independence, Moussa asserts: "We want to live on our own resources."
fuente : http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_46/b4203080895976_page_4.htm
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