K+S Group, Kassel, Germany, said Jan. 17 that it has commissioned the new kainite crystallization and flotation facility (KCF) at the Hattorf site in Germany. The facility will enable additional reusable resources to be obtained from saline solutions that could not be used until now and will simultaneously reduce the wastewater volume at the Werra plant by 1.5 million cubic meters, or about 20 per cent, annually. The company said with the related volume of capital expenditure at 180 million euros, the KCF facility is the largest individual water protection project to date.

K+S said the process allows for additional reusable resources to be obtained from saline solutions that could not be used in the past and which had to be disposed of. It will be possible to produce about 260,000 mt of saleable products (potassium chloride, magnesium sulfate) from them.

AdvanSix announced Jan. 17 that it has experienced a temporary production issue at its Hopewell, Va., facility related to the recent severe winter weather. As a result of this unplanned interruption, caprolactam and resin production have been reduced at their respective Hopewell and Chesterfield, Va., facilities. The company expects to incur an approximately $30 to $35 million unfavorable impact to pre-tax income in the first quarter of 2018, including the unfavorable impact of fixed cost absorption, lost sales, maintenance expense and incremental raw material costs. AdvanSix has informed its customers of this force majeure event and is actively working to mitigate the impact of the reduced output on its customers’ operations.

“We have been safely and diligently working to navigate through and address the effects of significant weather volatility,” said president and CEO Erin Kane. “We are confident in our action plan to resolve this issue and expect the required mechanical work to be completed in approximately two to three weeks.”

The unplanned interruption has no adverse impact on fourth quarter 2017 financial results. In the fourth quarter of 2017, the company said its operational performance was robust including completion of its planned plant turnaround on time and on budget. AdvanSix will provide an update and announce its fourth quarter and full year 2017 financial results in its earnings release and conference call scheduled for Feb. 23, 2018.

Nutrien Ltd. reports that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc., intends to sell 176,088,630 ordinary of Israel Chemicals Ltd. (ICL) – or 100 percent of Nutrien’s total stake – in a private secondary offering, subject to customary closing conditions. The offering is expected to close Jan. 23, 2018. Nutrien expects to receive approximately US$700 million of net proceeds from the sale of the shares. Selling the stake was a condition put forth by the Indians and Chinese for their approval of the PotashCorp-Agrium Inc. merger.

An Israeli financial industry source said that a group of five or six Israeli and two foreign institutional investors approached PotashCorp about buying its stake.  The Israeli institutional investors are reportedly Ion Asset Management, Psagot, Phoenix, Clal Insurance, Harel and Menora Mivtachim.

Trammo Inc., New York City, said Jan. 12 that its wholly-owned subsidiary Trammo Nitrogen Products Inc. has acquired Agrium’s North Bend, Ohio nitric acid production and distribution facility from Agrium U.S. Inc. The deal was announced in November (GM Nov. 10, 2017) and was a condition to obtain the approval of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for the merger of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. and Agrium Inc.

Trammo said the facility has an annual capacity of 75,000 mt/y of nitric acid production along with significant transportation and storage infrastructure for other nitrogen based products.

Yara International ASA said Jan. 12 that it has completed its acquisition of Tata Chemicals’ urea business in India. The acquired plant has an annual production of 700,000 mt/y of ammonia and 1.2 million mt of urea. The transaction is valued at $421 million.

CHS Inc., St. Paul, Minn., reported a 14 percent drop in first-quarter net income for the period ending Nov. 30, 2017, though results from the cooperative’s Crop Nutrients and Country Operations units were up over year-ago levels. CHS net income was $180.1 million on revenues of $8 billion, down from the year-ago $209.2 million and $8 billion, respectively.

“Despite challenging market conditions, CHS experienced a solid first quarter thanks to our continued focus on three key priorities: strengthening relationships, sharpening operational excellence and restoring financial flexibility,” said CHS President and CEO Jay Debertin. “In the first quarter, we recorded solid earnings from our businesses and reduced long-term debt. These actions are helping to strengthen and grow CHS.”

The Ag segment, which includes domestic and global grain marketing and crop nutrients businesses, renewable fuels, local retail operations, and processing and food ingredients, generated pretax income of $74.5 million compared to the year-ago $109.2 million.

The Nitrogen Production segment, which is comprised of the company’s investment in CF Industries Nitrogen LLC generated pretax income of $5.7 million down from the year-ago $27 million. The decrease in earnings was primarily due to a gain of $29.1 million from an embedded derivative associated with CF Nitrogen that was recognized in fiscal 2017. There was no comparable gain in the current fiscal year. This decrease was partially offset by higher urea and UAN prices.

The Mosaic Company announced Jan. 8 that it has completed the previously announced acquisition of Vale Fertilizantes from Vale SA

Vale received approximately 8.9 percent in Mosaic shares as part of the consideration for the deal, and as a result, Luciano Siani Pires has been elected to Mosaic’s board of directors. He is Vale’s CFO.