All Posts from April 23, 2015

PotashCorp seeks return to SQM board

Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc., whose three members of the Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile SA board of directors resigned last month (GM March 23, p. 1 ), has nominated three employees to represent Series A shares at the April 24 SQM shareholders meeting. They include:
Ms. Joanne Boyes, senior director of corporate reporting, finance and compliance;
Robert Kirkpatrick, vice president, deputy general counsel and assistant corporate secretary;
Arnfinn Prugger, vice president, technical services for PCS Potash.

The PotashCorp members who resigned were Alejandro Montero, Jose Maria Eyzaguirre and Wayne Brownlee.

While PotashCorp opted for fresh faces, three of Pampa Calichera’s four nominees for Series A seats are currently on the board:
Hernán Büchi B., a civil engineer who has been on the SQM board since 1993;
Juan Antonio Guzmán M., an industrial and chemical engineer who has been on the SQM board since 2013;
Wolf von Appen B., an entrepreneur who has been on the SQM board since 2005.

Dieter Linneberg A., an economist from the Universidad de Chile;

SailingStone Holdings Ltd. has nominated Edward Waitzer as an independent director representing the Series B shares. Waitzer is a senior partner with the Canadian law firm Stikeman Elliott LLP, and his practice focuses on complex business transactions.

OCI Partners restarts plants

OCI Partners LP said April 23 that it has restarted its ammonia and methanol production lines after completing a planned debottlenecking project. The upgrade is expected to increase the facility’s ammonia production capacity by 15 percent from 265,000 mt/y to 305,000 mt/y and its methanol production capacity by 25 percent from 730,000 mt/y to 912,500 mt/y. The ammonia production line has achieved its new, upgraded design capacity while the methanol production line is expected to ramp-up its capacity fully during the next two weeks.

To partially fund the current debottlenecking project costs, the LP has received an additional capital contribution of $60 million from its sponsor, OCI NV, in exchange for 3,502,218 common units priced at $17.132 which represents the 21-trading day volume-weighted average price of the LP’s common units on the New York Stock Exchange ended April 16, 2015. This increases OCI NV’s total unit ownership to 69,497,590 common units from a previous 65,995,372 common units resulting in an ownership 79.88 percent of the total common units outstanding.

The final cost of the project will be announced during the LP’s first quarter earnings announcement on May 11, 2015.

Strike delays ICL tons to China

While Israel Chemicals Ltd. has signed agreements with customers in China for 1.1 million mt of potash during 2015, the tons cannot be delivered in the first half due to the strike at Dead Sea Works. ICL said the agreements include options for an additional 100,000 mt. The ICL price is up $10/mt in line with other suppliers to China.

Agrium to divest UAN plant

Agrium Inc. said April 23 that it intends to divest the West Sacramento, Calif., product upgrade facility and site in 2015. The site has access to tidewater and imports the raw materials to produce UAN solutions for the California market. Over the past two years, the site has produced on average about 200,000 mt of nitrogen solution products. The decision to divest the site was made as part of Agrium’s portfolio review and any impact on financials are expected to be negligible.