Resumen de Potash and phosphate: : Year in Review 2015

Industrial Minerals

• Heading into 2014, the implications of the flooding of Uralkali OAO's Solikamsk II mine in Russia were among the chief supply concerns facing the potash industry. Solikamsk II represented a fifth of Uralkali's capacity, and, by the end of 2015, the company had not been able to recover the mine, having pulled equipment out of the site in February.

  Also making the headlines for negative reasons in 2015 was Sociedad Quimica y Minera (SQM). Its CEO, Patricio Contesse, was ousted following a number of revelations about the company's business dealings in 2014 and 2015. SQM's potash operations remain relatively stable, but ructions over the company's lithium and iodine businesses posed question marks over its medium-term cash flow.

  Possibly the biggest story of the year was the attempted takeover of Germany's K+S AG by Canada's Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. (PotashCorp). Delivered to K+S executives in June 2015, PotashCorp initially offered a EUR 41/share ($45.19/share*) deal. This was rejected by the German company's management in July. PotashCorp withdrew its bid in October after repeated attempts to woo the company, stating that market conditions for the purchase had deteriorated, despite saying only weeks before that the deal was even more attractive than when it was originally proposed.