Fertilizer Markets and Finance

Planning decision on York Potash Project set for July

Sirius Minerals has updated its shareholders on the planning approval process for its York Potash Project.

As part of its timetable to make a determination on the application, the North York Moors National Park Authority (“NYMNPA”) has prepared an ‘issues report’ for its planning committee. 

The report is a snapshot of the planning considerations and does not account for all of the additional information recently provided to the NYMNPA last month. This information was provided by the company following a range of information requests by the NYMNPA and is currently subject to a re-consultation exercise by the Authority with statutory consultees. 

Read more at StockMarketWire

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.

A DECISION on the future of a proposed £1 billion potash mine in the North York Moors has been delayed after the company has been asked for further information.

The plans were to be discussed by the North York Moors National Park Authority at a meeting on May 21.

But the authority is to consult again with statutory stakeholders, including the Ministry of Defence which has raised concerns over the possible impact on RAF Fylingdales, and the Environment Agency, once further information has been received.

The meeting has been provisionally pushed back to July 2. Sirius Minerals, the company behind the York Potash Project, has agreed to provide the outstanding information by April 21 and that it was planning to hold a webcast explaining the planning process.

Read more at The York Press 

Proposals to mine some of the world’s largest deposits of potash - used to make fertiliser - under the North York Moors have divided local opinion.

With peaceful, stunning views, tourism provides most of the jobs in the region, but with pockets of high deprivation and an economy growing at half the national rate, some welcome the income the mine would provide.

Jenny Hill reports.

A MAJOR mining project which could create up to 5,000 jobs has received a boost after the firm behind the plans is set to be granted an offshore licence to extract a mineral which makes super-fertiliser potash from underneath the North Sea bed.

York Potash, the company which wants to build a concealed polyhalite mine south of Whitby after discovering what is thought to be the world’s largest and purest seam below the North York Moor National Park, has been notified the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) has positively determined its application.

Sirius Minerals, the international mining conglomerate which owns York Potash, announced the news to the market this morning, saying the step, which allows the firm to extract minerals from a 525km sq area under the sea, represented one of the project’s four “key approvals”.

The company expects to receive written confirmation of the decision from the MMO, which is the Government body which regulates the seas around England.

The news comes as the firm announced plans for its onshore mine at Sneaton, south of Whitby, North Yorkshire, were being finalised and were expected to be submitted to the North York Moor National Park Authority for approval by the end of the month.

Read more at The Northern Echo

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

CLEVELAND Potash has waived a £13m Government grant for the production of a fertiliser in order to carry out more research.

The company was promised the money by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills’s Regional Growth Fund to process polyhalite.

The substance is a salt containing potassium, magnesium and calcium which it is believed has the potential to significantly enhance the local economy. It is sold as a fertiliser to farmers worldwide.

Cleveland Potash began mining polyhalite at its Boulby mine in 2010, becoming the first company in the world to mine, process and sell the mineral.

As a result it was promised a Government grant of £13m to continue the work, but has instead decided to commission further research into the proposed development of a manufacturing plant.

The decision means they will not reach the Government’s time frame for the development. This does not affect the firm’s operation of the Boulby

mine, which continues to extract potash, rock salt and polyhalite.

Read more at gazettelive.co.uk

Ideas of the quality, and quantity, of the UK wheat crop deteriorated further, even as the pace of harvest picked up somewhat, helped by a drier start to autumn following the wettest summer in 100 years.

Farmers have seen wheat deliveries refused for high counts of DON, or toxic fungal residues, which have proved surprisingly low given the extent of fusarium infections encouraged by the wet weather.

“There are now some reports of rejections as a result of grain loads exceeding maximum DON levels,” consultancy Adas said.

And the group warned of a further drop in the specific weight of wheat as harvest heads into areas growing greater proportions of feed wheat, after results from milling wheat regions in the south which indicated a reading of 71.9 kilogrammes per hectolitre – the worst since at least 1976.

“Recent quality reports indicate that specific weights continue to be lower than in recent years typically ranging from 60-72 kilogrammes per hectolitre, with some lower specific weights being reported from the north and west,” Adas said.

“Quality remains an issue, especially specific weight,” which in measuring the weight of grain per given volume, in essence gives a reading of the proportion of shrivelled kernels.

Read more at Agrimoney

UK wheat users have lowered quality hurdles to ensure supplies of grain in the face of a poor domestic harvest, which data on Thursday revealed had come on top of a drop in farm stocks to a 12-year low.

“All UK millers have dropped their fallback levels,” the penalties for grain not meeting typical quality specifications, a major UK merchant said.

The normal specs include a target of 76 kilogrammes per hectolitre in terms of specific weight, the weight of wheat per given volume.

For the group 1 or group 2 wheats, the top milling varieties, “It is worth discussing any [crop]… you have testing above 70 kilogrammes per hectolitre,” the merchant said.

For feed, major users, including a large Cargill enterprise, are showing an increased willingness to take wheat down to a specific weight of 65 kilogrammes per hectolitre, Agrimoney.com has learned.

Read more at Agrimoney

Seven-billion-dollar investment commitment allows resources giant BHP Billiton to move eight major projects into execution, while six projects deliver first production.

RESOURCES giant BHP Billiton says six major projects delivered first production in the 2012 financial year, while a total investment commitment of $7.5bn enabled another eight major projects to move into execution.

Releasing its exploration and development report for the year ended June 2012, the group noted that in addition, US$2.7bn (BHP Billiton’s share) of pre-commitment funding was approved to further progress a series of development options.

“BHP Billiton’s proven strategy to invest in large, long-life, low-cost, expandable, upstream assets, diversified by commodity, geography and market, ensures we are well positioned to maintain strong momentum and returns in our major businesses, despite significant volatility in the external environment,” it said.

Read more at Business Live

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

Mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto will not be affected by new laws in the United Kingdom requiring firms to list their greenhouse gas emissions because they say they already do so.

The move introduced overnight has received mixed views in Britain, where it would be used to help calculate UK carbon taxes on more than 1,000 London-listed firms.

The UK will become the first country to make it compulsory to include emissions data in annual reports.

BHP and Rio are dual listed and trade on both the London and Australian stock exchanges and are among the largest few companies on both bourses.

A BHP spokesman said the company already calculated its emissions through its annual Sustainability Report, with the next one due in September.

In last year’s report, BHP said its carbon-based energy intensity and greenhouse gas emissions intensity were lower than its 2006 baseline, by 17 per cent and 18 per cent respectively.

That was mostly driven by the agreement to use mostly hydro-electric power at its aluminium smelter in Mozambique.

Rio Tinto produces a Sustainable Development chapter in its annual report, with emissions in 2011 lower than in 2008 but higher than in 2010.

Late last year it blamed an aluminium smelter closure in north-east England, that cost 515 jobs, on new carbon taxes there.

The carbon taxes caused energy costs to increase significantly, it said.

A minority of companies voluntarily calculate such emissions and reveal at which locations they occur in sustainability reports.

Carbon reporting would force companies to cut pollution and switch to a more sustainable form of business, British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said at the Rio+20 summit, a UN Conference on Sustainable Development.

It would come into effect in April.

It would help companies save money on energy bills through energy efficiency, improve their reputation and manage their long-term costs, he said.

The laws might be extended to private large companies from 2016.

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.