KORE POTASH has announced that it and Summit Africa Ltd, on behalf of a consortium of investors and engineering firms, have signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to arrange the total financing required for the construction of the Kola Potash Project in the Republic of Congo (RoC). Summit and their technical partners SEPCO Electric Power Construction Corp. (SEPCO) and China ENFI Engineering Corp. (ENFI), who has been subcontracted by SEPCO, will work with Kore to undertake an optimisation study to reduce Kola’s capital cost with a target of less than US$1.65 billion, the target CAPEX. Under the proposed financing structure, the company would not be required to contribute to the capital needed to build the project and would retain a 90% equity interest in Kola. The company will contribute approximately US$900 000 to the optimisation study costs. SEPCO will cover the remaining 50% of the estimated costs of the study. Kola is a high grade, high quality, shallow sylvinite potash deposit situated on an existing mining licence, approximately 35 km from the coast, and only 65 km north of the harbour city of Pointe Noire.
ICL GROUP, the Tel Aviv-based multi-national manufacturing concern, has signed a contract with Indian Potash Ltd (IPL), India’s largest importer of potash, to supply an aggregate 600 000 t of potash – with mutual options for an additional 50 000 t – to be supplied through to December 2021. The agreed selling price in the contract is US$280/t CIFFO Indian ports, US$50/t above the previous contract. The contract is part of the five-year supply agreement signed in 2018 between ICL and IPL. “The contract we have signed in India, one of ICL’s strategic markets, is part of the five-year supply agreement we signed in 2018 with IPL,“ ICL’s EVP CCO, Eli Amon, commented. „This contract further testifies to the leading position ICL has in this market and reflects the growing positive momentum in the fertilizer market globally. Favourable weather conditions, an increase in planted areas, and tight supply are contributing to solid global demand for potash.”
BELARUS POTASH Co. (BPC), the Eastern European country’s potash monopoly, and Indian Potash Ltd. (IPL) have renegotiated a potash supply contract signed in January 2021, whereby the new contract price has been increased by 13% and set at US$280/t on CFR terms. BPC said that the new agreement was possible “thanks to a balanced approach to doing business and a common desire for a balanced and reasonable development of the potash market, which is demonstrated by the parties to the agreement.” The original one-year contract signed in January was for the supply of 800 000 t of potash fertilizers to the Indian market US$247/t on CFR terms. BPC, a trading arm of Belaruskali, the world’s largest producer of the crop nutrient, signed its annual potash supply contract for 800,000 tonnes with India’s largest importer of the product, Indian Potash Limited, in January. BPC competes with Mosaic and Israel’s ICL among other producers.
