Fertilizer Markets and Finance

Plans to extend a potash mine at Boulby in East Cleveland are expected to create more than 270 jobs by the end of 2015, the owners said.

Cleveland Potash, which runs the site near Saltburn, said the development would secure the plant for 40 years.

Plans include extending the mine to the east and upgrading facilities to increase production capacity.

Some groups have raised concerns the development could have an intrusive effect on the local area.

The company hopes to extend its planning permission with the North York Moors National Park Authority to 2063.

Cleveland Potash’s parent company Israel Chemicals Ltd (ICL) is set to invest £300m in the area over the next five years.

Read more at BBC

The potash plant at Boulby is set to increase its workforce by 270 in the next two years

Britain will be forced to become a net importer of wheat for the first time in a decade this year, after the recent bitter weather devastated crops.

THE firm behind a mine that could create up to 5,000 jobs in the region has reduced development costs by about £700m and could have the facility up and running within four years, if plans go ahead, it emerged yesterday.

Further engineering work has revealed York Potash, which wants to start mining what is thought to be the world’s largest deposit of the mineral polyhalite, used to make fertiliser component potash, can reduce the cost of creating the mine from £1.7bn to £1bn and complete it three months faster.

The statement was released to the City yesterday by Sirius Minerals, the international mining firm that owns York Potash.

The project at Sneaton, near Whitby, could create up to 1,000 direct and 4,000 indirect jobs, but the high costs involved in extracting the mineral has prompted Sirius to launch a search for potential investors. It is also planning to crush and sell granular polyhalite rather than incur the high costs of processing the mineral. Yesterday, Sirius unveiled a project study update which outlines the reduced pre-production capital costs, which the firm says reduces project risk for investors and makes new jobs more likely.

The changes to the proposals will still necessitate an underground pipeline to a distribution plant in Teesside, and will not affect the final number of jobs.

Following detailed work, the company’s engineering team believes the mine could be constructed at least three months earlier than previously thought, further minimising the impact of the project’s construction.

Sirius also announced the results of a concept study which confirms the viability of producing NPK fertilisers using polyhalite, the potash ore targeted by the project, which is a source of potassium, sulphur, magnesium and calcium.

Read more at The Northern Echo

Chinese buyers, whose interest in foreign farmland has raised hackles from Argentina to Australia, have turned their attention to the UK –although for investment, rather than food security, reasons.

Knight Frank, the UK-based property consultancy, said it was, for the first time, “starting to see genuine bids” from Chinese investors wanting to buy UK farmland.

However, these were offers from private investors, rather than the funds whose appetite for large swathes foreign farmland has often met with controversy, largely for fear of growing food for shipping direct to China, and so denying the local market.

“These are personal Chinese buyers doing it for investment,” James Prewett, a regional head of farm sales for Knight Frank, said.

“It is different to a fund trying to buy 20,000 acres in East Anglia.”

‘Little piece of England’

Indeed, buyers are interested in smaller farmers, of £1m-2m, which “is not a big chunk of money” for a market in which the average value of agricultural land hit a record £6,295 an acre in the April-to-June, according to Knight Frank, with some lots going for £10,000 an acre.

Nonetheless, Chinese bidders had, even in losing out so far on auctions, including for a farm in Buuckinghamshire, helped lift the market by bidding up prices, and could become an increasing force, depending on whether more follow.

Read more at Agrimoney

UK wheat exports held firm as orders from Algeria, and an uptick in purchases by drought-hit Spain, filled the void created by the end of a run of transatlantic shipments.

The UK, the European Union’s third-ranked wheat grower, exported 126,816 tonnes of the grain in April, customs data showed.

The figure was in line with that the month before, and up 38% on the figure for April 2011, despite the end of a run of nearly 250,000 tonnes of shipments to the east coast of America, trade reflecting the weak price of UK wheat compared with US supplies earlier in 2011-12.

Values of US soft red winter wheat, the type traded in Chicago, and in small amounts on other exchanges, were swollen by strong values of rival grain corn, although it is now rated by American brokers as a world-beat on price.

Read more at Agrimoney

MILLIONS of pounds every year are to be pumped in to the Scarborough community as plans to set up a fund from the area’s proposed potash mine are revealed.

York Potash, the firm working to build a mine between Scarborough and Whitby, has announced this morning that a community fund will be set up to plough revenue from the mine directly in to local projects.

Following a £2 million initial start up donation, half a percent of revenue from the mine will be injected in to the fund annually.

Bosses at York Potash say this will equate to £3 million a year in the early stages, which would rise to £9 million a year when the mine is in full production.

The fund is to be called The York Potash Foundation, and will be run as an independent charity by a board of locally appointed trustees.

It has been set up specifically to support four main areas; education, skills and training, community facilites, and environmental initiatives.

Chris Fraser, managing director of Sirius Minerals, the parent company of York Potash, said: “We had always planned to put something like this in place as we want to extend the project into the community.

“We want the mine to have a positive, lasting legacy financially for the community.

“I look forward to the day when we have got someone graduating from university with a degree funded by The York Potash Foundation.

“We really want this to make a meaningful difference to people locally.”

Plans for the mine, which is set to create 1,500 jobs directly, were announced in January last year.

York Potash has since been carrying out test drilling in the area to determine the quality and amount of potash, as well as geographical studies to help locate the minehead.

The company hopes to submit the first planning application for the mine, which could be situated in the North York Moors National Park, by the end of year.

If permission is granted York Potash hopes to have the mine in production by 2017.

UK wheat exports drop despite further US purchase

UK wheat exports have fallen to a nine-month low, sapped by the worst month for shipments to the rest of Europe in at least two years, and putting trade back on track to fall within official estimates.

The UK, the European Union’s third-ranked wheat producer, shipped 124,916 tonnes of the grain in March, customs data showed.

The figure was the lowest since July, the first month of the 2011-12 marketing season, although kept  bigger than the 104,000 tonnes exported in March last year by another shipment to the US.

A further 47,250 tonnes was shipped to the US, taking the total transported on the route in 2011-12 to 242,698 tonnes, the largest for an season on records going back to the 1960s.

Read more at Agrimoney

Farming union leaders in the UK have reacted with serious concern to reports that Government negotiators in Brussels are trying to give Member States the power to cut CAP direct payments by up to 20 per cent through a system which would replace modulation.

These cuts would be on top of the European Commission’s proposals for 30 per cent to be ring-fenced for “greening” conversely and on top of the 10 per cent “compulsory modulation” which the Commission proposes should permanently shift into the Pillar 2 envelope. It is understood that some Member States, including Spain, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria, are seeking to return modulation monies back to the direct payments in a step known as “reverse modulation”.

In a joint statement, Peter Kendall, Nigel Miller, Ed Bailey and John Thompson, said: “UK farmers will be very concerned to hear that UK ministers are seeking to engineer ways to cut direct payments while other Governments are looking for ways to increase them to their farmers through reverse modulation. “We know that money is going to be tight in this next CAP and we recognise that it is inappropriate to argue for more money to be spent on direct payments at this time. However, the fundamental problem to be addressed here is not the level of support payments to UK farmers, but the inadequate Pillar 2 allocation that the UK receives. 

Read more at South West Farmer

New Government figures which show farming is performing strongly, despite the ongoing struggles of the wider economy, have been welcomed by the industry in the Westcountry.

But increased costs in fuel, fertiliser and animal feed continue to make farming a challenging career.

The latest farm income figures released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) show the total value of UK farm output has increased by 15 per cent to £23.7 billion in 2011.

Farming’s contribution to the wider British economy also increased 25 per cent year-on-year in gross value added terms to £8.8 billion, representing the strongest performance by the farming industry since the mid-1990s.

This was reflected by a 31 per cent increase in the bottom line for UK agriculture, as the total income from farming increased by £1.4 billion to £5.7 billion. In real terms, after adjusting for inflation, total income from farming is estimated to have increased by £1.1 billion.

Mel Squires, regional director of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) in the South West, said: “The positive headline performance by the industry is undoubtedly good news and a marked change to the decade-long lows we witnessed before 2008.

Read more at South Devon

Sirius Minerals Plc (SXX) plans to begin production in 2017 at a proposed $2.7 billion potash mine that’s set to become the largest in the U.K., and is in talks with lenders on helping to finance the development.

“What we’ve shown is the project has the potential to be one of the most significant mining and fertilizer developments in the world,” Chief Executive Officer Chris Fraser said by telephone. The company today released a preliminary development study showing the mine may also produce gypsum and epsomite.

Sirius may seek to raise about $2.5 billion in debt from banks to help fund the mine on the Yorkshire coast in northeast England, according to the CEO.

“We are going to continue to analyze and explore all avenues of finance,” said Fraser, the former head of metals and mining investment banking at Citigroup Inc. in Australia. This includes the possibility of bringing in potential customers, as well as current potash producers, as partners, he said.

Read more at Bloomberg

Total N applied to tillage crops increased by 1kg N/hectare, alt-hough overall application rates of N in 2011 to winter wheat, barley and oilseed rape were the same as in 2010. Rates of N applied to spring barley and maincrop potatoes increased - for the latter by 28kg N/ha. The amount of N applied to sugar beet fell by 4kg N/ha.

Overall phosphate use on arable crops increased by 1kg/ha to an average field rate of 60kg/ha, although the proportion of arable land receiving a phosphate dressing decreased, with 49 per cent of tillage crops receiving an application of P.

Read more at Farmers Guardian

The number of Sussex sheep farms hit by a deadly livestock disease has more than doubled in the last three weeks.

The county is the worst hit area in Britain by the Schmallenberg virus, which leaves newborn lambs dead or deformed.

Figures from Defra show 59 Sussex sheep farms have now reported being affected by the disease.

Now cattle farmers are nervously waiting to see if the virus will affect their cows when the calving season begins in earnest next month.

Read more at The Argus

The price of diesel in rural filling stations is, on average, 4p more than in urban areas, a new survey has shown.

Cars are becoming an “unaffordable necessity” for many living in rural communities, said the Countryside Alliance, which conducted the survey.

The costliest diesel - at 146.9p a litre - was in Purbeck in Dorset and Ryedale in North Yorkshire. In contrast, diesel in Birmingham and in Dartford in south-east London was “only” 139.7p a litre. Overall, the alliance found that diesel in rural areas averaged 144p a litre, while in urban areas the average was 140p.

Countryside Alliance executive chairman Barney White-Spunner said: “Not only do people living in rural areas have to drive further to go to work, further to access essential services like schools, doctors and the supermarket, but they have to pay a lot more for their diesel to do so.

A new animal disease that causes birth defects and miscarriages in livestock has now been found on 74 farms in England.