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Analyst: Russian potash problems won’t have major impact

russian potash mine 11-14A fertilizer industry analyst says a flood at a Russian potash mine, which accounts for about three percent of global potash supply, shouldn’t have much impact on potash prices in the U.S.

David Asbridge, president and senior economist with NPK Fertilizer Advisory Service, doesn’t expect potash prices to rise as a result of Russian situation.

“What it could mean is that prices won’t fall any lower,” Asbridge says. “They have kind of been easing down after remaining very strong through the summer and early fall period. They were beginning to ease off a little bit, so probably what that will do is stop prices from getting any lower.”

Asbridge says there is currently an oversupply of potash worldwide—and he says farmer demand for all fertilizers has been very slow.

“This is probably going to turn out to be one of the slowest falls we’ve seen in quite a while now because crop prices have dropped off, the harvest had been running late up until the last week or so, and then we had that big winter storm move across the North that’s keeping farmers out of the fields,” he says.

There’s an even bigger challenge facing the fertilizer industry right now, Asbridge says—the clogged transportation system. He says tie-ups in rail and barge shipping, combined with record corn and soybean crops, are making it more difficult to ship fertilizer to where it needs to be.

AUDIO: David Asbridge

Photo:  A sinkhole more than 130 feet wide has developed east of OAO Uralkali’s Solikamsk-2 potash mine in Russia, likely the result of underground flooding in the mine.

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