Junior miner Gensource Potash Corp., Saskatoon, said Nov. 29 that it has signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding with an Indian company, Essel Group Middle East Limited (EGME) to form a joint venture company that will advance one of Gensource’s small scale potash projects in Saskatchewan through to production.

EGME will provide business and logistic expertise to the jv and will provide financing in two stages – first, to complete the current feasibility study, and second, to finance the construction of the project. Ultimately, when the construction financing has been committed, the JV will be owned 70 percent by EGME and percent by Gensource.

According to Gensource, EGME is a part of Essel Group India, a company operating in many sectors, including media, entertainment, infrastructure, and education. It said EGME is pursuing growth by securing strategic resource investments across the globe and by diversifying into the hydrocarbon and mineral resource sectors.

Belarusian Potash Co. and China Chemical Construction Corp., a subsidiary of CNOOC, jointly announced Nov. 24 that they had signed a new memorandum of cooperation for the next three years. The memorandum provides for the supply of 1.5 million mt of potash to China from 2017 to 2019. The price and volumes to be supplied in 2017 will be negotiated as a part of the regular annual potash contract negotiations that BPC says haven’t begun yet. The two parties signed their first memorandum in December 2013.

K+S Group on Nov. 28 reported that during start-up of factory operations, a fire broke out at the Hattorf site Nov. 25 causing damage to the process control system power supply. Based on current information, repairs will take three to four weeks. During that time, it will not be possible to resume production as planned.

K+S said plant firefighters were able to quickly put out the fire. No one was injured. However, damage was caused to the power supply for the central process control system, which controls the processing plant operations.

The production of Epsom salt from intermediate products supplied has not been affected by the damage as that takes place in a separate operational section of the Hattorf site. Production at the two other Werra plant sites, Wintershall and Unterbreizbach, is continuing normally.

The employees affected, so far as possible, will be deployed at other sites. The damage will be covered by the property and business interruption insurance held by the K+S Group. The insurance policy provides for the reimbursement of the costs of repairs to any property damaged as well as of any costs resulting from the interruption of business operations that can be evidenced.

STC has scrapped its urea tender in which it had earlier planned to buy some 820,000 mt of product (GM Nov. 23, 2016). While some reports were blaming a new currency policy in the country, others noted that the recent tender prices were up some $40/mt.

In addition, sources report that farmers are short on cash and retailers are not offering enough credit; something that is hitting all fertilizer purchases.

Tampa ammonia prices for December have moved up to $225/mt CFR, $15/mt from November’s $210/mt CFR. Sources attributed the uptick to increased prices at other international price points in recent weeks.

OCI NV said Nov. 21 that the start-up of its Iowa Fertilizer Co. plant in Wever, Iowa, is imminent. It said the introduction of feed gas and steam to the primary reformer is expected this week and the downstream plant is in the commissioning phase. The start of ammonia production is expected in December, followed shortly afterwards by the downstream products (UAN, urea and DEF).

The U.S. Department of Commerce International Trade Commission announced Nov. 18 that it is removing antidumping duties from PhosAgro’s urea.

“The U.S. Department of Commerce made this decision following a major effort to prove that PhosAgro sells its high-quality fertilizers in full compliance with anti-dumping regulations,” said PhosAgro CEO Andrey Guryev.

PhosAgro noted that in 2017 it plans to launch a new, high-tech granulated urea line with a capacity of 500,000 mt/y. It said production output from this line that is not consumed by PhosAgro’s domestic Russian market will be sold to export markets, including possibly the U.S.

The STC urea tender closed Wednesday, Nov. 16, with more than 2 million mt in firm offers and prices about $40/mt higher than the previous tender. The lowest offers came from Transagri and Global at $244.10/mt CFR, most likely with Iranian tons. These offers represent a jump of $41/mt from the most recent tender.

All told, 19 companies offered tonnage. One trader commented the tender represented a lot of people tossing in offers that are unworkable.  The counter bids from STC are expected by Friday.

The China-equivalent price comes to just under $230/mt FOB. While last week’s business in China was pegged in that range, sources said producers have been holding out for prices closer to $235-$240/mt FOB for granular and a few bucks less for prills.

In the run up to the tender, sources said the price will determine how many tons STC will take in the end. Reportedly, India still needs about 1 million tons to close out the buying season.

For more details on the tender, see the Nov. 18 issue of Green Markets.

Trammo Inc., New York City, on Nov. 8, announced certain changes in the structure of its business.

It has ceased proprietary trading of natural gas liquid (NGL) futures and will now focus on maximizing the value of its two propane terminals which will remain in service to their customers.

In addition, it will no longer trade petrochemicals, with the withdrawal from that business expected to be concluded by the end of 2016.

Trammo said it will continue to perform all of its obligations and to provide full support to each of these businesses as they wind down.

Trammo will now focus on trading its core products to achieve a high level of profitability. According to Edward Weiner, CFO and COO of Trammo, “these changes are part of a long term vision for the company. Today, Trammo remains financially strong with a solid equity base and adequate capital to support its core business activities.  Going forward, Trammo will continue to be a leading market participant in the core products that it trades. We remain committed to giving to all of our business counterparties the high level of service that they have come to expect from Trammo.”

Founded in 1965, Trammo is a global commodities merchandising and distribution company engaged in the purchase, sale, distribution and transportation of a wide variety of products, including sulfur, sulfuric acid, ammonia, fertilizers, petroleum coke, coal and rice.

The State Trading Corp. of India called the last urea tender of the calendar year. The tender will close Nov. 16. Shipment from the loading port is to be completed by Dec. 30.

The industry had been expecting the tender. Sources report India still needs about 1 million mt of urea to close out the fiscal year, which ends in March.

The current rise in urea prices is expected to limit how many tons each trading house will offer in this tender. Iran is expected to lead the way with offers nearing 300,000 mt. After that, said one trader, it will all depend on how willing the Chinese producers will be to lower their prices to match the Iranians. Arab and CIS producers will also have to lower their current pricing ideas to meet the expected lower Iranian price.