K+S plans expansions to keep potash market share

28 August 2008 16:09 [Source: ICIS news]

TORONTO (ICIS news)--Potash producer K+S is looking to expand capacities in Germany and elsewhere to maintain its global 10% market share in line with growing global demand in coming years, a company spokesman said on Thursday.

“We keep looking for opportunities to expand here in Germany and elsewhere,” Ulrich Gobel, spokesman for the Kassel, Germany-based company, told ICIS news.

Gobel was confirming remarks by K+S' CEO Norbert Steiner in an interview with German business daily Handelsblatt.

One key option included restarting an idled potash facility in eastern Germany, he said.

K+S submitted a proposal to reactivate the state-owned Rossleben mine in Thuringia to GVV - a government agency charged with maintaining and selling off idled mines in eastern Germany - and expected to hear from authorities in coming weeks, Gobel said.

Rossleben was closed in 1991 following German reunification as it could not compete against producers from Canada and Russia.

However, with the recent boom in agricultural commodity prices and demand the mine - with estimated reserves for 30 years, assuming a 1m tonne/year production level - has become a promising prospect again, industry sources said.

GVV confirmed it had received several promising proposals for Rossleben but did not identify companies by name.

According to industry reports, bidders include companies from Canada, Israel and France as well as Germany.

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By: Stefan Baumgarten
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