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we need a good ol pump job to inflate all the grassroots
you unload all your RAY yet?
good price for next pp
Ya my broker is going to do well through this recession!
I think my $4.08s will do just fine
Canasia hires Dahrouge for Eyehill Creek development
2008-03-04 04:07 MT - News Release
Mr. Graeme Sewell reports
CANASIA RETAINS GEOLOGICAL CONSULTING GROUP FOR POTASH DEVELOPMENT
Canasia Industries Corp. has hired Dahrouge Geological Consulting Ltd. to assist in the evaluation and implementation of a work program on the Eyehill Creek potash prospect. The Eyehill Creek potash prospect consists of 20 metallic and industrial minerals permit (MAIM) applications. These permit applications, which the company anticipates will be granted shortly, encompass approximately 450,000 acres of lands prospective for potash.
The Eyehill Creek potash prospect is underlain at depth by the Prairie Evaporite formation, the uppermost unit of the Elk Point Group. The Prairie Evaporite formation occurs extensively across the plains region of Western Canada, where individual potash beds can be up to seven metres thick.
The potash-bearing beds of the Prairie Evaporite formation are shown to project into the Eyehill Creek property by Hamilton (1971), while Hamilton and Olson (1994) document a potash showing on the property. Most of the recorded potash exploration in Alberta occurred between 1965 and 1968. The company believes that there is potential for the discovery of significant potash resources on the Eyehill Creek property.
Currently, there is no National Instrument 43-101 report on this property, nor are there proven, indicated or inferred resources. The company plans to initiate a report shortly.
Graeme Sewell, a director of the company, stated: "Adding a quality geological firm to Canasia's team is a positive step forward in regards to the growth of the company. Dahrouge Geological Consulting brings many years of experience that will add tremendous value in terms of evaluating and implementing a work program with the ultimate goal of developing the Eyehill Creek potash prospect. When you couple our potash prospect with the Reed Lake copper prospect expected to have work starting shortly, clearly the company has major corporate developments ahead of it."
Jody Dahrouge PGeo, qualified person has reviewed this news release.
Potash One hires Golder for Legacy engineering
2008-03-03 11:23 MT - News Release
Mr. Paul Matysek reports
POTASH ONE INITIATES ENGINEERING AND ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES ON THE LEGACY PROJECT
Potash One Inc. has commissioned Golder Associates Ltd. to commence engineering and environmental studies in relation to Potash One's potash project in Saskatchewan (the Legacy project). Phase I of this comprehensive environmental impact assessment program will allow the company to gather information which will direct and focus field activities, investigations and assessments. The Saskatoon office of Golder Associates will conduct these studies. It is estimated that the initial work will be completed in approximately eight weeks.
The purpose of phase I of the EIA program is to initiate the collection of additional site-specific baseline data necessary for project planning, environmental assessment and subsequent regulatory permitting for Legacy project.
Paul Matysek, president and chief executive officer of Potash One, stated: "We are pleased to have retained a strong and local engineering and environmental services group. Golder is a premier company in Saskatchewan that has provided various services to major potash producers, including Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, Agrium and Mosaic. We look forward to working with Golder Associates Ltd. in this and subsequent phases of our environmental and engineering program."
About Golder Associates
Golder Associates, a global group of technical professionals specializing in ground engineering and environmental services, was established in 1960. The firm has strong integrated engineering and environmental capabilities and has experienced steady growth, now employing over 6,000 people that operate from more than 150 offices located throughout Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, North America and South America.
Golder has provided a variety of services to potash producers, including the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, Agrium and Mosaic, in Canada, Brazil and Argentina. Services have included geotechnical engineering, tailings management planning and construction, environmental baseline collections, environmental impact studies, regulatory permitting assistance, hydrogeological investigations, underground support evaluations, hydrological/surface water assessments, geophysics, brine containment engineering, and operational environmental auditing.
This is a big step toward a pilot plant and production!
The purpose of Phase I of the EIA program is to initiate the collection of additional site-specific baseline data necessary for project planning,
environmental assessment and subsequent regulatory permitting for Legacy Project.
Inside joke...
Toronto likely to spend winter maintenance budget
But city has money in reserve - BY DAVID NICKLE
February 8, 2008 04:06 PM
If the rest of the winter keeps pace with the near-record levels of snowfall of the past week, the city will likely spend its whole winter maintenance budget of $65 million this year, according to Toronto’s top transportation official.
“If these types of weather conditions continue, we will probably be overspent by the end of the year,” Toronto’s Transportation Services Director Gary Welsh told the city’s public works and infrastructure committee on Friday, Feb. 8.
The over-expenditure won’t be a problem, Welsh said – the city has an $11-million reserve fund for just this eventuality – but he made it clear that the city’s resources for dealing with heavy snowfalls are being stretched.
“This week has been a trying week,” he said.
“We’ve had over 50 centimetres of snow. Normally we only get 27 centimetres of snow in February. The latest snowfall was 31 centimetres and that’s the highest level we’ve had in a day since 1999 (when former mayor Mel Lastman called in the Canadian Armed Forces to help dig Toronto out). Operations this week went off as planned, but with the high amount of snow it was a very large challenge in front of us. Public expectations are very high for the city to do a good job for snow clearing.”
Welsh said the snow clearing has been a little slower than usual, with some side streets still covered in snow.
And the city will be working on snow removal on snowdrift-clogged streets through the weekend.
The storm last weekend cost about $4 million and the two storms Wednesday – which together dropped 31.5 centimetres snow – have so far cost about $2 million. The snow removal operation for Wednesday’s storms will likely cost another $2 million.
Sweet, I hope Toronto gets one mother of a snowfall soon.
Maaden to dominate fertiliser market
State mining firm expects to supply 20 per cent of $25bn market when Ras al-Zour complex opens.
Maaden Phosphate Company claims it will become the world's largest producer of diammonium phosphate (DAP) fertiliser when its complex at Ras al-Zour is completed, taking up to a fifth of the global market.
The plant is being built in two phases by a joint venture of Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Maaden) and Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic).
The first phase of the project, with capaciSaudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic).ty of 2.9 million tonnes a year (t/y), will have a major impact on the world market for phosphate-based fertilisers when it comes on stream in late 2010, says Maaden.
The second phase is set to be approved by the end of the month, giving the plant export capacity of at least 6 million t/y of DAP, or almost half the 12.2 million tonnes produced globally in 2006.
Based on market prices, the global DAP market is worth $25bn a year. The market for urea, the most commonly used fertiliser, is worth about $46bn a year.
"We expect to take a 15-20 per cent share from day one," says Steve Wilson, a spokesman for Maaden Phosphate Company. "The sulphuric acid, ammonia and phosphoric acid plants will be the largest [of their kind]."
The project could be able to undercut its competitors. "It is the only fully integrated phosphates project in the world and we have access to cheap natural gas and great economies of scale," says a senior project source.
Costs in Russia, a key rival, are set to escalate dramatically, with Gazprom set to raise sulphur prices more than sevenfold in 2008. Maaden, in contrast, will have access to cheap local sulphur.
"Maaden's sulphur will be cheaper than most," says Barrie Bain, director of Fertecon, a UK-based fertiliser consultancy. "But the phosphate rock will be expensive compared with Morocco and US producers who have their own rock. It depends on how Maaden accounts for the capital cost."
The project will bridge a significant DAP supply gap that has pushed prices up to $850 a tonne from just $250 a tonne at the start of 2007.
"The first phase of the project will tip the market into surplus," says Bain.
The $5.56bn project will require $3.9bn of debt from banks and export credit agencies. Syndication of the $1.9bn bank portion has begun, with financial close
by May.
The new output will affect Riyadh's regional competitors, notably Jordan, which produced 600,000 tonnes of DAP in 2006, Morocco, which produced 1 million tonnes, and Tunisia which produced 1.1 million tonnes.
Morocco's state-owned Office Cherifien des Phosphates will remain the world's largest exporter of phosphate products overall, including the production of phosphoric acid and another fertiliser, monoammonium phosphate.
The US is currently the world's largest DAP exporter, with 5.65 million tonnes exported in 2006. Russia was the second largest, with exports of 1.5 million tonnes. Tunisia, Morocco and Jordan make up the rest of the top five.
* Author: Richard Nield. Senior Writer - London
A little labor unrest with Potash Corp could go a long way for our grassroots. A coworker of mine took a job interview with Potash Corp and reported that working conditions and wages didnt come close to comparing with Alberta. I wonder how the people underground feel about these executive salaries?
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Hefty pay at PotashCorp
CEO Doyle received $17 million in 2007
Cassandra Kyle - Saskatoon The StarPhoenix
Saturday, March 01, 2008
The top five executives of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan were paid $32 million in 2007, according to company documents -- the same amount the federal Conservatives pledged in the budget to give prosecutors to battle illegal drugs.
The sum does not include the value of PotashCorp shares held by the top executives, which totals $72.5 million. About $46 million worth of those shares belong to company president and CEO Bill Doyle, according to PotashCorp's management proxy circular released Friday.
The head of the world's largest fertilizer enterprise was paid $17 million last year, including a $2.2-million bonus based on the company's performance.
Doyle's base annual salary was $1.04 million, while other cash and stock incentives helped him reach the $17-million figure, a paycheque significantly higher than the $8.9 million he took home in 2006.
A portion of Doyle's shares are held in a family trust and the William and Kathy Doyle Foundation. While PotashCorp has its headquarters in Saskatoon, Doyle now resides in a suburb of Chicago where the company has its main U.S. office.
The company's highest-paid Saskatoon executive is executive vice-president and chief financial officer Wayne Brownlee, whose total 2007 compensation reached $4.6 million, nearly $1.3 million more than his 2006 payment.
The 12-member board of directors, meanwhile, was compensated last year to the tune of $22 million, including stock awards. Board chair Dallas Howe, owner and CEO of Calgary-based DSTC Ltd., received the largest share of the compensation with $3.8 million. Doyle, who is a member of the board, does not receive any extra money for his role at the board table.
The large sums are largely due to PotashCorp's record-breaking 2007, said company spokesperson Rhonda Speiss. The company recorded a net income of $1.1 billion last year, or $3.40 per share, on world demand for food and alternative fuel. The company, which is experiencing a year-over-year share price increase of 201 per cent, had a net income of $631.8 million, or $1.98 per share, in 2006.
"When you look at our compensation structure we are comparable to other companies our size, but the big difference between us and other companies our size is our company performance," Speiss said.
All employees now have the option to work toward cash bonuses in a short-term corporate reward program, she explained. PotashCorp has always believed in rewarding for performance, Speiss added, and the company's compensation philosophy is based around attracting, motivating and retaining the best staff.
"When you see the numbers it's reflective of the success of the company and the success of the individual. We really believe in the principle of paying for performance, that aligns the interest of our employees and our directors with the interest of the shareholders and that leads to the best performance," she said.
Doyle and Howe are set to make more money in their positions this year. The CEO's annual salary has been raised to $1.092 million, while the chair's annual retainer has recently increased to $320,000 from $280,000 for 12 months, according to the document.
The circular also shows that if PotashCorp was a corporate takeover target and the new ownership didn't want Doyle to continue running the company, he would receive more than $188 million in compensation, including a value of $154 million in stock options he would be eligible to cash out immediately in that situation. In 2007, Doyle received a $3.8-million payment at the current stock price, plus options to purchase additional stock worth $7.6 million.
Some Canadian organizations are questioning why some people are worth so much and others so little.
In 2007, Murray Dobbin, a freelance journalist and member of both the Council of Canadians and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), led a letter-writing campaign to protest what he called "obscene" CEO salaries.
The CCPA has published reports on how long it takes for an average CEO (from a list of 100 of Canada's best paid) to earn the average annual Canadian salary.
According to the CCPA's latest report, it took each of those 100 CEOs, who earned $8,528,304 on average annually, until 10:33 a.m. on Jan. 2 to equal the average Canadian salary of $38,998. By that calculation, those CEOs will continue to make the average Canadian salary every nine hours and 33 minutes for the remainder of the year.
The same CEO only has to work four hours and four minutes to earn the $16,620 someone on minimum wage would earn.
In December 2007, the average worker in Saskatchewan was paid $742.62 a week, according to Statistics Canada.
PotashCorp employs 5,003 people, 1,730 of whom are on salaried pay. The remaining 3,273 employees are paid an hourly wage, according to the company's most recent filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
When guano imperialists ruled the earth
Because no day is complete without further investigation of fertilizer's historic role in the evolution of the global economy, How the World Works intends to brighten your Friday with some deep thoughts on bird poop.
Specifically, Peruvian guano.
Glenn Davis Stone, a professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, whose fascinating work on the uptake of genetically modified cotton by Indian farmers has been featured here previously in "Ganesh and Brahma Bow to a New God" and "The Napster Pirates of Transgenic Biotech," writes in to remind us of President Millard Fillmore's State of the Union address in 1850.
Peruvian guano has become so desirable an article to the agricultural interest of the United States that it is the duty of the Government to employ all the means properly in its power for the purpose of causing that article to be imported into the country at a reasonable price.
From which followed the passage of the Guano Islands Act, which authorized U.S. imperialist expansion in search of guano.
The first clause of said Act:
Whenever any citizen of the United States discovers a deposit of guano on any island, rock, or key, not within the lawful jurisdiction of any other government, and not occupied by the citizens of any other government, and takes peaceable possession thereof, and occupies the same, such island, rock, or key may, at the discretion of the President, be considered as appertaining to the United States.
The Incas are known to have exploited offshore guano resources for fertilizer, but the mid-nineteenth century saw the true heyday of Peruvian guano, as farmers around the world discovered that the excretions of the Peruvian Booby and the Guanay Cormorant were a superb, relatively odorless, source of phosphorus and nitrogen. So began "the guano rush." In 1858, Great Britain alone imported 300,000 tons of Peruvian guano, mostly for the purpose of turnip farming. The British Empire, in fact, completely monopolized the Peruvian guano trade, causing much gnashing of teeth and hardship for American farmers and prospective fertilizer-importing entrepreneurs. The Guano Act, therefore, was aimed at helping American companies compete in this nascent era of globalization. Around 60 islands, mostly in the Caribbean and Pacific, ended up being acquired.
For Peru, the golden age of guano -- from 1840-1880 -- was a tremendous boon, allowing the state to pay off crippling foreign debt. During that 40 year period the country exported 20 million tons of guano, earning around $2 billion in profit. Unfortunately, as W. Mathew wrote in "Peru and the British Guano Market" (Economic History Review, 1970), Peru immediately began again to borrow recklessly on international markets, and successively hiked up the price of guano to pay for the new loans.
This was not a prudent move. In the United Kingdom, where the Industrial Revolution was at full bore, chemists were busily unlocking the secrets of how to manufacture fertilizer. Price hikes for Peruvian guano offered a kick in the pants, as Antony Gibbs & Sons, the British firm that owned the rights to the Peruvian guano trade, were all too cognizant.
Mathew writes:
From the very earliest days of their involvement in the trade, the British guano consignees, Antony Gibbs & Sons, were aware that a watchful eye would have to be kept on the price level lest too much encouragement were given to their factory-based rivals. Competition, they wrote in 1843, "is our chief danger for it is plain agricultural chemistry is in its infancy, and it is impossible to say what discoveries in it may be made."
Of course, even without a price surge, Peruvian guano's days were numbered. Mathew again:
An all-purpose fertilizer, by its very nature, could not hope to dominate the market indefinitely. Developments in soil and plan chemistry, increasing sophistication in fertilizer manufacture, growing scientific awareness in the farming community, and increased interest in the subject of manuring stimulated by guano's success all combined, inevitably, to widen the range of special products appearing on the market and, accordingly, to reduce the area of the market which Peru could hope to retain. [James] Johnston [a professor of chemistry at Durham] remarked, ominously for Peru, when guano first appeared on the British market, that its introduction would "prove a great national service, if it shall teach us to imitate so valuable a natural production."
Yes indeed, and if one accepts that synthetic fertilizer has been critical to avoiding a global Malthusian die-off, then billions of people around the world can be thankful that we are not solely dependent on Booby shit for our phosphate requirements. Because there just isn't enough of it.
The price of Peruvian guano collapsed as a result of the industrial production of "superphosphate" and ammonia in the U.K., sending the Peruvian economy into a tailspin. But Peru continued to export guano at such a rate that by 1910 it had severely depleted its national resources. Bird poop that has accumulated over thousands of years cannot be replaced in a season or two.
But, intriguingly, Peru's guano travails were not all doom and gloom. According to David Duffy, a professor of botany at the University of Hawaii, the Peruvian government recognized the ecological disaster that it had created and responded by forming the Guano Administration Company, which Duffy calls "one of the first and most effective examples of sustainable exploitation of a natural population by a government." Guards were placed on each guano island to protect the birds from being disturbed, and guano harvests were strictly regulated.
Alas, if only we could say the story ended happily there! Peru's more recent fiscal and political agony, combined with severe overfishing of the once-vast schools of anchoveta that served as the primary food of the guano birds, has once again led to a drastic ecological consequences. Bird populations have plummeted. As Duffy writes, this is too bad for Peru, because, the circle has come round, and Peruvian guano is again a hot commodity, considered now to be one of the world's premier organic fertilizers.
I suppose that last point would make a nice place to stop, but I can't restrain myself from noting that David Duffy dedicated his paper, "The Guano Islands of Peru: the Once and Future Management of a Renewable Resource," to George Evelyn Hutchinson, whose classic 554 page work, "The Biogeochemistry of Vertebrate Excretion," published in 1950, "forms the basis for all research on the ecology of guano."
Technical reasons prevented me from downloading this masterpiece, originally published by the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, but I did find a review that appeared in the Journal of Animal Ecology in 1951, written by one Richard S. Miller, who manages a surprisingly blogospheric tone of snark for his day.
In spite of its profound title this is a study of aspects of the production, deposition and chemistry of "guano" and although eighty pages are devoted to guano formed by cave-dwelling bats the primary emphasis is on guano produced by sea-birds....
This work succeeds in compiling a vast number of facts documented by over 950 references, and it contains valuable information for ecologists. The stated purpose of the survey to correlate "available information on all aspects of the interrelations of biology and geochemistry" is, however, exceedingly ambitious, and although Prof. Hutchinson has performed a feat of scholarly research, the resulting chaos of fact makes this a cumbersome monograph for practical use."
Excessive ambition in the service of guano ecology is no vice, we say here at How the World Works. And a chaos of fact? What's not to like?
An al-Qaeda yard sale?
Debate rages as farmers bypass fertilizer dealers to import potentially explosive ammonium nitrate from Russia
JOE FRIESEN
March 1, 2008
WINNIPEG -- Just before Arctic ice closed the shipping lane last October, a Russian freighter carrying enough ammonium nitrate fertilizer for nearly 5,000 Oklahoma City-sized bombs docked at Churchill, Man.
It was hailed as a new frontier, the first-ever inbound shipment to arrive at the northern port across the Arctic bridge from Russia. But questions are being raised about the ship's cargo, which is the same potentially explosive materiel allegedly sought by the 17 men accused of a terrorist plot in Toronto in 2006, and which was also used in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
After it left Churchill, 9,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate was delivered directly to farmers in Manitoba and Saskatchewan and stored in their barns over the winter. Now, a group that represents the major farm retailers is crying foul, saying those farmers could be inadvertently putting national security at risk by storing the ammonium nitrate on their own property, and not at locked retail facilities. It's something they want to see addressed in federal explosives regulations that could become law as early as this month.
"We have a large amount of a product that we know to be in high demand from both criminal and terrorist elements loosely secured throughout the Prairie provinces," said Dave MacKay, executive director of the Canadian Association of Agri-Retailers.
"In my opinion, if we're not careful we could have an al-Qaeda yard sale going on in Western Canada."
Jason Mann is the chief operating officer of the Farmers of North America, a Costco-style group with more than 8,000 members that arranged for the fertilizer to be sent from Murmansk, Russia, to Churchill.
He says his opponents are motivated by money, not concern for national security.
"It's got nothing to do with homeland security or an al-Qaeda yard sale or any of that foolishness," Mr. Mann said. "The Association of Agri-Retailers are just looking for any way to keep us out of the market. They want to make their money off farmers and they'll spin any story, say anything they want, to keep us out."
If anything, Mr. Mann said, fertilizer dealerships are more likely targets for theft.
"If I'm a terrorist, where am I going to look for fertilizer? Through some guy's barn in Morris, Man., or am I going to the dealership with 20 white bins in it?"
It's a debate driven by the skyrocketing cost of fertilizer, a product that makes agricultural land more productive at a time when grain prices are soaring to record highs.
Prairie farmers say their fertilizer costs have more than doubled over the past year, to about $600 a tonne. Those who bought the ammonium nitrate from Churchill paid a lot less, Mr. Mann said.
"You've got four players in the market controlling the market, and all these little farmers trying to make their best deal," Mr. Mann said. "They don't have a hope. We combine all the resources of these individual farmers to create some balance."
Glenn Blakley, head of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, said farmers are supportive of the FNA, and no one is worried that al-Qaeda is lurking on the back roads of the Prairies.
"That's absolute garbage. What they're doing is using the fear factor so they have a captive marketplace, and of course there's the record profits they're reporting," he said.
Ammonium nitrate is no longer widely used on the Prairies, in part because manufacturers stopped making it for security reasons. It's more commonly found in Eastern Canada, where some of the men accused in a terror plot in Toronto are alleged to have tried to acquire three tonnes of the substance.
In the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols built a two-tonne bomb in the back of a Ryder truck using ammonium nitrate and a mixture of fuel and other explosives. At present, ammonium nitrate sales are not restricted in Canada, although a Natural Resources Department document identifies it as the product at greatest risk to be used for terrorist or criminal purposes because of its widespread use.
The RCMP said it takes the issue of ammonium nitrate storage seriously, and set up a 1-800 number for farmers or retailers to report suspicious activity as part of the Canadian Fertilizer Institute's On Guard for Canada campaign. They couldn't say whether the phone line had ever been used.
Mr. MacKay of the Canadian Association of Agri-Retailers said his group isn't just reacting to competition from the FNA. It wants to see a level playing field, he said. The federal government is about to impose new restrictions on the storage and handling of ammonium nitrate that will require retailers to build secure storage facilities with alarms, locks, key controls, lighting, safety and security plans, regular inspection schedules and detailed record keeping.
He's asking the government to help pay for these measures, estimated to cost about $120,000 initially and $20,000 a year after that, as they did when making port facilities more secure after 9/11.
"If we're expected to invest in substantial infrastructure for security but the growers don't necessarily have to do that, that just destroys the market for us," he said. "It's economic suicide."
NAFTA reality will soon set in - By MICHAEL DEN TANDT
There's an old saying, often repeated during the great debates over free trade 20 years ago, that conservative America will never allow Canada to become the 51st state. That's because, by inclination and tradition, most Canadians are Democrats. With an additional 30 million of them going to the polls, the Republicans would never win another election.
That notion is all the more relevant now as we grapple for the first time with the likelihood of a Barack Obama presidency. This week we see him and Hillary Clinton both, while campaigning in Ohio, railing against the North American Free Trade Agreement and vowing to rip it up. Coming in a Canada-U.S. border state, that's a clear swipe at Canada.
Both Clinton and Obama say they want the deal renegotiated. Obama's platform has contained this tidbit for months: "Obama believes that NAFTA and its potential were oversold to the American people. Obama will work with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to fix NAFTA so that it works for American workers."
To say that NAFTA was or has ever been oversold, as an economic policy, is hogwash. NAFTA was the signature achievement of the Brian Mulroney Conservatives and it was a great achievement, seedy Karlheinz Schreiber dealings notwithstanding. Since Canada-U.S. free trade went into effect in 1989, bilateral trade between the two countries has tripled. That translates directly into jobs for Canadians.
BENEFIT TO U.S.
But the real story, from a U.S. electoral point of view, is the one Obama and Clinton deliberately ignore. Free trade has been hugely beneficial to U.S. workers, too. For 36 of 50 U.S. states, Canada is the leading export market. That includes all the powerful border states -- Ohio, Michigan, New York. But it also includes some states you might not expect -- Georgia, Kansas, Tennessee, South Carolina.
In 2006, according to Canadian government data, Ohio alone exported $18 billion worth of merchandise to Canadian customers. A big chunk of that was in transportation and metal products, related to the auto industry. We bought $3.4 billion worth of their auto parts, and $2.1 billion worth of their cars. And here's another interesting tidbit: In 2006 Ohio imported $4.2 billion worth of Canadian crude oil.
Of course, Ohio isn't the only state that needs Canadian energy, as Industry Minister David Emerson pointed out Wednesday. At last count, Canada provided about 18% of the United States' foreign oil supply -- more than any other source including Saudi Arabia, which provides about 15%. Canada accounts for almost all of the United States' natural gas imports, which are critical to, among other things, keeping lights on in California.
Net result? As Emerson not so subtly intimates, a future President Obama won't want to keep his promise of tearing up NAFTA, because the pact is integral to U.S. economic health and energy security. The Americans need free trade at least as much as we do. Obama is trading in campaign rhetoric. In policy terms it's meaningless.
It's also a timely reminder that, for all his charm, this is still just a man and a politician, bent on achieving great power. If elected, he'll become the most powerful human on Earth and as different from you or me as toads are from toadstools. Power will temper and change him, just as it did long ago to a bright, charismatic young Englishman named Tony Blair.
Comforting to know I am in with a master trader :)
11 months and counting :)
Got some AGU in your honor, does that count?
Hows da slopes?
Its alive!
MaxTech to option Congolese prospect
2008-02-19 13:55 MT - News Release
Mr. Thomas Tough reports
MAXTECH VENTURES SIGNS OPTION AGREEMENT ON PROSPECT IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
MaxTech Ventures Inc. has entered into a five-year option agreement to acquire up to a 100-per-cent interest in a 36-kilometre-square platinum, copper and tin prospect in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
MaxTech can earn a 70-per-cent interest in the project by completing a prefeasibility study on the property, can purchase an additional 5-per-cent interest for cash, and the remaining 25-per-cent interest in the project can be acquired for common shares in MaxTech, based on a valuation of the property and prevailing market price of the company's common stock at the time of the acquisition.
The company has now commenced a 90-day due diligence period to evaluate information on the project. Upon successful completion of its due diligence, MaxTech will advance the optionor $100,000 (U.S.). This is an advance payment against acquiring a 5-per-cent interest in the property from the optionor, with the final purchase price to be determined based upon a valuation established in the future.
Also upon successful completion of its due diligence, the company will engage independent consultants to prepare a technical report on the project to NI 43-101 standards. The mining department of the government of the DRC has extensive technical and geological data on the prospect, due to previous work completed in the area. To assist in the development of this report, the company has an agreement to acquire this information at a cost of $150,000.
Going forward, MaxTech does not have specific exploration commitments, but will be responsible for costs relating to taking the project to the prefeasibility stage.
A formal agreement will be undertaken by the parties after the company has completed its due diligence. This agreement is subject to regulatory approval.
Not a perfume factory - Life on the farm
Published: Thursday, February 28, 2008
Dick Suever
The B. Wary farm was a couple of miles south of our farm. They also owned some acreage about two hundred yards north of our place. Now, the Wary boys weren’t content to “just” be farmers like their father B. Over the years they earned a reputation far and wide for coming up with “hair-brained” schemes to make a quick buck.
All of the sudden, we noticed a building being constructed on the B. Wary land close to our home, and it did not appear to be the typical house, barn or other building farmers usually construct. Also, it was located at the end of a long lane rather than close to Southworth Road on which we lived.
The cement block building with it’s tall smokestack was completed just in time for the hot summer months to arrive. And, it didn’t take long for everyone within miles to realize that it was not a perfume factory.
This happened back in the 1930s when almost all farmers had horses and cows, some mules or jackasses. As nature would have it, the lives of those animals eventually came to an end and the farmers had a problem disposing of the carcasses.
Knowing that farmers would expect no payment if someone would just take the carcasses off their hands, the Wary boys decided this was a BIG profit opportunity. They would simply pick up the free carcasses and convert them into fertilizer. So, they built this fertilizer plant.
With newly purchased open bed trucks they began picking up the animal carcasses farmers were eager to surrender. Those loaded trucks coming from the south needed to pass our property on Southworth Road to get to the plant. We knew when those trucks were passing our home without looking because our noses told us so.
When the cookers at the plant were fired up, the odor was MUCH stronger, especially when riding on the winds blowing from the north. Not only we human beings but our farm animals took quick notice. The chickens wouldn’t come out of the hen house. Cows and horses refused to leave their familiar environs apparently preferring the manure smell to that which was coming from the fertilizer plant. Chickens stopped laying eggs, cows stopped giving milk, horses kept whinnying in protest and the pigs stopped grunting so they wouldn’t need to inhale. To say that the situation was only becoming unbearable would indeed be an understatement.
After receiving many complaints, the Wary boys decided they would operate the plant only at night when people and the animals were asleep. Problem was there was no air conditioning at that time so the windows were kept wide open at night to let the house cool down. The windows in the chicken house, barn and pigpen were also left open during the night for ventilation.
Complaints grew louder and warnings from the health department more frequent, causing the Wary boys to come to their senses (scentses?) by the end of that unseasonably hot and sticky summer. They reluctantly decided it might be best to explore other opportunities to get rich quick and began to wonder if they might be destined to just be farmers after all.
I remember how everyone and the animals were greatly relieved but kept a watchful eye toward that building in fearful anticipation of the Wary boys’ next wacky venture.
There was never a dull moment down on the farm for the “fertile” mind of a very observant little boy like me.
CVR Smells a Ripe IPO Market - Lisa LaMotta, 02.28.08, 5:09 PM ET
CVR Energy plans to capitalize on the greening of the nation with its decision to take its fertilizer division public.
CVR Partners, currently Coffeyville Nitrogen Fertilizers, is planning an initial public offering of 5.25 million common shares with 787,500 for overallotments, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol CVE. The exact date of the IPO is yet to be announced.
The fertilizer company will offer the shares at $20 each after deducting underwriting expenses. The company has yet to name its underwriters, but expects that the IPO will generate $93.4 million. Following the offering, parent company CVR Energy, a petroleum refining business, will indirectly own about 87% of the company.
The company will use the proceeds to pay fees associated with its revolving secured credit facility, reimburse Coffeyville Resources, and $72.5 million will be used to expand its fertilizer plant.
CVR uses petroleum coke, a by-product of petroleum refining, to produce fertilizers and is in agreement to purchase petroleum coke from CVR Energy for the next 20-years. CVR is taking advantage of the hot market climate in the fertilizer industry. The demand for fertilizers stems from a need to increase domestic crop production to create more environmentally-friendly fuels, via better soil enriched with fertilizers.
Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, a fertilizer company based in Canada, closed up 1.7%, or $2.69, to $162.29 on Thursday. CVR Energy also said to day that it will release its year-end earnings on March 10. Shares of the stock were down on Thursday by.78% or 23 cents, to $29.32.
MagIndustries' Kouilou mine to cost $723-million (U.S.)
2008-02-28 17:52 MT - News Release
Mr. William Burton reports
POSITIVE FEASIBILITY FOR MAGMINERALS' KOUILOU POTASH MINE
MagIndustries Corp.'s MagMinerals Inc., an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of MagIndustries, has received the results of a final feasibility study (FS) for the development of the Kouilou potash mine near Pointe-Noire in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). MagMinerals intends to build, own and operate a stand-alone, 600,000-tonne-per-year potash mine and plant, 16 kilometres east of Pointe-Noire, West Africa's best deepwater port.
The FS was carried out in two phases. Phase 1, completed earlier by Genivar LLP, consisted of a preliminary investigation of the quality of the resources, development of the preliminary scope of the project, and the initiation of the environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) study. The results of phase 1 were reported in Stockwatch on March 30, 2006. SNC-Lavalin International Inc. (SLII), a company contracted in July, 2006, has now completed phase 2 of the FS and has presented the results to MagMinerals as a 19-volume final feasibility.
The capital cost of the project has been estimated at $723-million (U.S.), excluding financing costs, for a 600,000-tonne-per-year operation producing granular K60-grade potash. Direct and indirect operating costs, with contingency, are estimated to be $83 (U.S.) per tonne. BNP Paribas, financial adviser to MagMinerals, completed the financial analysis. Based on a net realized potash price of approximately $500 (U.S.) per tonne, the first phase of the project yields an internal rate of return (IRR) of 26 per cent and a net present value (NPV) of $450-million (U.S.) (assuming a 12-per-cent discount rate). The Government of Congo will retain a 10-per-cent free-carried interest in the Kouilou potash mine.
BNP Paribas has approached a group of international lenders that has given a strong expression of interest to finance 70 per cent of the project costs (through debt) to bring the Kouilou potash project into production. MagMinerals intends to provide the required 30-per-cent equity and to close project financing by the third quarter of 2008, with construction to begin immediately thereafter. On the basis of the acceptance of the FS, MagMinerals has now been mandated to complete all required agreements and proceed with corporate and project financing.
The FS is based on the application of proven solution mining technology to exploit the company's 100-per-cent-owned carnallite deposits which underlie the majority of the 2,265-square-kilometre Makola licence. Solution mining produces potash-rich brine which, under the proposed plan, will be treated in a crystallization plant to produce granular-grade potash fertilizers for export. The potash plant will use commercially available technologies. One of the primary inputs for this process is natural gas, which is available locally (currently flared from the area's significant oil production with no public or industrial consumers). This gas supply will also supply an on-site, 26-megawatt, gas-fired power plant, which will be sufficient to meet all mine and plant requirements.
MagMinerals is also pleased to report the finalization of a National Instrument 43-101-compliant technical report (TR) entitled, "Reserve Estimate for MagMinerals Makola Permit Area, Kouilou Region, Republic of Congo," which identifies proven and probable reserves available to support the Kouilou potash mine. These reserves are located in the 25-square-kilometre Mengo area, which represents only a small portion of the 2,265-square-kilometre Makola permit area. The proven reserves amount to 17.9 million tonnes of potassium chloride while the probable reserves amount to 3.1 million tonnes of potassium chloride. At a production rate of 600,000 tonnes of potassium chloride, this indicates a mine life of about 34 years. In addition, the earlier technical report (filed on SEDAR and reported in Stockwatch on Nov. 20, 2007) showed inferred resources of 1.07 billion tonnes of carnallitite, representing 185.9 million tonnes of potassium chloride. Ercosplan notes that the proven and probable reserves are open in all directions and that additional drilling will likely increase the reserve base available for future plant expansions.
The potash deposits occur in the form of carnallitite rock, which underlies most of the Makola permit area. For the whole Congolese coastal basin, geological resources (non-NI 43-101 compliant) have been estimated at 800 billion tonnes of carnallitite by the Congolese government. The company's Makola permit covers about 20 per cent of the Congo basin. The past-producing Holle potash mine area (1,300 square kilometres), which lies within the Makola permit but 20 kilometres northeast of the Mengo area, reported 30 billion tonnes of K2O (non-NI 43-101 compliant) as sylvite and carnallite. The details of the data available for these historical resource estimates are less than that required for inferred resources according to the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM).
Carnallite is a mineral best described as a magnesium-potassium-chloride or a double salt with the chemical formula KMgCl36H2O. The carnallite occurs in multiple, horizontal horizons ranging in thickness from 0.5 metre to 24 metres with an average content of about 70 per cent carnallite. Four horizons, located between 400 metres and 800 metres below the surface, have been considered for commercial development.
The report is based on the technical results of 13 drill holes, 23 kilometres of seismic surveys and downhole geophysical surveys completed during MagMinerals' recent exploration programs. Ercosplan Ingenieurgesellschaft Geotechnik und Bergbau mbH (Ercosplan), formerly the East German Potash Consortium, author of the report, has over 50 years of experience in the potash industry. Ercosplan was responsible for supervising the drilling and core sampling programs. The authors of the report, Dr. Henry Rauche and Dr. Sebastiaan van der Klaw, are the qualified persons with respect to the technical reporting and have reviewed and approved the contents of this press release.
MagMinerals has chosen Ameropa AG to market all exports of potash from the Kouilou project. Ameropa, with its head office in Binningen, Switzerland, is privately owned and a leading global marketer of potash and other fertilizer products. Ameropa sells important quantities of potash in Brazil, Africa and Europe. Shipments of fertilizers and grains by Ameropa total 10 million tons annually, which is expected to lead to significant economies in ocean freight.
The Kouilou plant is based on a modular design and it is the intention of MagMinerals to double the first-phase capacity as soon as possible to reach total production of 1.2 million tonnes per year to more fully use the extensive resource base available. The capital cost required to double the capacity of the plant is expected to be significantly lower than the first phase as it will benefit from the extensive infrastructure put in place by building phase 1. A copy of the full report may be obtained under MagIndustries' profile on SEDAR or on its website.
What I think?
Drilling production holes after spring break.
Bankable feasibility this year.
Production from a pilot plant in 2009 if not bought out.
Others will not be even close.
Yes short term goal to exceed Anglo share price.
From the MD&A...
In the coming years, the Company’s management intends to increase its market share, in particular, through the
acquisition of businesses in the field of desktop computers, laptop computers, servers and information technology
services. These acquisitions will be financed through additional private investments or share issues. Prosys is
currently discussing with securities brokers in connection with a number of on-going negotiations. Prosys also
intends to develop the small and medium-sized business market and reinforce its positioning with its institutional
clientele in Canada.
Magenn Power is seeking $5 million USD. Proceeds will be used to finish building prototypes and bring the Magenn Air Rotor System (MARS) to market.
Funding will also be used to set up manufacturing, sales and marketing.
If you would like to have more information on investing in Magenn Power, please email: invest@magenn.com
http://www.magenn.com/
Municipalities have been using human waste for fertilizer nothing new there except in Uganda its untreated.
When I was in Nepal I used an outhouse over the pig trough, now thats recycling!
sorry copy link into your browser and add "ftp://" to the front of it (without the quotes)