Brandt, Springfield, Ill., said June 30, that it has acquired the assets of Tratamientos Guadalquivir SA. (Tragusa). Tragusa is based in Carmona, Spain and manufactures, distributes and sells specialty fertilizers, adjuvants and a full line of crop protection products.
Brandt said the acquisition will give it manufacturing capacity in Europe, plus access to new markets especially in the crop protection category.
LSB Industries Inc. said June 29 that its new 375,000 st/y ammonia plant at its El Dorado, Ark. facility, has been producing ammonia at an average rate of 1,150 st/d, the plant’s nameplate capacity, since June 22, 2016. Since that date, El Dorado has been a net seller of ammonia, with all ammonia that the facility has not upgraded into other products being sold to Koch Fertilizer via pipeline under the previously announced three-year offtake agreement.
K+S Group on June 27 warned that EBIT 1 for the second quarter of 2016 will be around €10 million compared to the year-ago €179.2 million. Reasons given were significantly lower average selling prices in the potash and magnesium products business unit and unexpectedly high production outages due to the limited deep-well injection permit for liquid residues at the Werra plant. The company estimates that it has had a year-to-date production shortfall of some 400,000 mt and it doubts this can be caught up.
In addition, in the Salt business unit, lower pre-buying sales for de-icing products led to a significant volume decline primarily in North America.
The Tampa ammonia price for July was concluded at $285/mt CFR, down some $30/mt from the June price.
Amid media reports earlier today quoting Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko as saying Belarus had signed a new potash supply deal with India, Belarus Potash Co. (BPC) said it is still completing work on the supply contract but expects to sign it by the end of this month.
“We have reached significant progress in the negotiation process with India, which allows us to expect the signing of the contract in June,” a spokesperson for BPC told Green Markets.
It has been widely expected that India would settle a contract before China this year, given the more favorable market conditions there. Historically, potash contracts with China have been concluded first, setting a price benchmark for other markets.
President Lukashenko also is reported to have said at an event in Minsk, that Belarus is considering cooperating with Russian potash producer Uralkali. Uralkali declined to comment. The Russian potash company in late July 2013 stopped its potash export sales through the two countries’ long-standing joint export marketing venture BPC, opting to market all its export volumes through Uralkali Trading. The Russian potash producer’s decision followed the issue of a decree by the Belarusian president in December 2012 which cancelled the exclusive right of BPC to export Belarusian potash, after which Belaruskali made a number of potash deliveries outside BPC.
Canpotex Ltd. announced June 17 that its board of directors has decided not to proceed with construction of a new export terminal at the Port of Prince Rupert in British Columbia.
The decision was based on economic and commercial considerations. The organization said that it has highly efficient export terminals in Vancouver, Saint John and Portland, and has determined it has sufficient port access and terminal capacity options to meet its needs.
Trammo Inc., New York, said today that it has reorganized some of the product lines in its Commodities Division and that this has led to a reduction in workforce of eight people among offices in Tampa, New York, Zurich and Singapore.
Veolia North America, Chicago, said June 14 that it plans to buy Chemours’ Sulfur Products division for $325 million. This division is a specialist in the recovery of sulfuric acid and gases of the refining process, which are regenerated into clean acid and steam used in a wide range of industrial activities. As a tuck-in to Veolia North America’s Industrial Business, the company said the division is an excellent complement to Veolia’s existing business, and will reinforce its existing recovery and regeneration capabilities and technologies.
The Andersons Inc. said June 9 that they have rejected the latest bid by HC2 Holdings Inc. to acquire all or part of the company.
The latest offer, which was dated June 2, simply reiterated HC2’s $37.00 per share proposal to acquire all of the outstanding stock of the company. This proposal was previously rejected.
HC2 did revamp its alternative proposal to buy portions of The Andersons. In the June 2 offer it said it would buy the Grain, Rail and Ethanol divisions for $1.15 billion. Earlier, it had proposed to buy the Grain (excluding Lansing and Thompson’s) and Rail for $950 million.
The Andersons said the new alternative was an even worse deal, valuing the Ethanol business at only $200 million.
The company said it stands ready to engage constructively on any credible proposal that has a legitimate possibility of delivering more value to shareholders than the company’s standalone business plan.
The Mosaic Co. today confirmed persistent reports within the fertilizer industry that it was undergoing a reorganization with job cuts. “We have made difficult decisions to reduce our workforce to ensure Mosaic will be as competitive as possible in all parts of the business cycle, including the challenging current environment,” Ben Pratt, Mosaic vice president, corporate public affairs, told Green Markets. “This reorganization of our corporate functions moves more decision-making to our business units and flattens the organization to make Mosaic more efficient. We have been careful to affect as few people as possible.” Pratt did not elaborate further, however, industry sources said the number of cuts they had heard was somewhere in the 150-185 range.
