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no volume all year as holders were waiting for the big score!
yup there will be some meetings if not already
could go alot higher!
nice trade!
wtg tbv!
PharmaGap finds PhG-alpha-1 cancer drug effective
2008-04-17 07:35 MT - News Release
Mr. Robert McInnis reports
PHARMAGAP DRUG EFFECTIVE AGAINST BREAST AND COLON CANCER
PharmaGap Inc. has released the results of animal studies indicating statistically significant effectiveness of its lead cancer drug, PhG-alpha-1, in treating human breast and colon cancer.
Five separate test models, with a total of 240 mice, having previously been implanted with either human breast or colon cancer, were treated with PhG-alpha-1 at three doses, both singly and in combination with chemotherapeutic agents, or received saline solution or the chemotherapeutic agent alone as test controls.
In two of the test groups, one breast and one colon, the human cancer cells were implanted intravenously (breast) or intraperitoneally (colon), in order to simulate the natural metastases or spreading of the cancer cells within the body from one host organ to another. At the completion of a seven-day period during which the cancer cell types used are known to establish tumours, the treatment regime began.
In three of the test groups, one breast and two different colon cell types, the human cancer cells were implanted subcutaneously. Once one or more palpable tumours were established, treatment began on a mouse by mouse basis, according to its assigned treatment group.
Breast cancer metastatic model
In this model, human breast cancer of the type Estrogen Receptor negative, which as a group represents the 30 per cent of breast cancers which are not currently treatable by available drug therapies, were implanted into the bloodstream and provided with a seven-day period to allow tumours to form. The type of cancer cells implanted is known to be highly invasive to the lungs, within a three- to five-day period following implantation. Following this establishment period of seven days, the treatment regime began in the eight groups of five mice.
In the group of five mice receiving PhG-alpha-1 at the dose of one milligram per kilogram of body weight, four of five (80 per cent) when euthanized at the end of the trial period were observed to be tumour-free on postmortem examination, with no effect on other organs. The remaining mouse had developed a single small, friable (easily broken down) tumour. In the two control groups (saline and chemotherapy alone), nine of 10 (90 per cent) developed tumours, with only one surviving to the end of the trial and with ancillary organ damage to some degree. For all other treatment groups, 22 of 25 (88 per cent) developed tumours, and none survived to the end of the trial, again exhibiting ancillary organ damage.
Breast cancer subcutaneous model
Using the same human breast cancer type, cancer cells were implanted beneath the skin and provided time to develop palpable tumours, following which treatment began.
In both single and combination therapy with a low dose of conventional chemotherapy agent, PhG-alpha-1 at one mg/kg body weight extended mouse survival relative to controls. In the cohorts receiving the combination treatment, the five and 10 mg/kg dosages showed however a longer extension of survival. More significantly, the cohorts receiving PhG-alpha-1 at each of the three dosing levels in the combination treatment showed a clear reduction in tumour volume compared with the cohort receiving chemotherapy alone, with a statistically significant dose response. The overall reduction in tumour volume compared with the control group receiving chemotherapy alone was approximately 58.7 per cent.
Colon cancer metastatic model
Human colon cancer cells, type LS180, known to be highly metastatic following implantation in the peritoneal cavity (the space containing the intestines, stomach and liver), were provided with a period of seven days in order to establish metastatic tumours on the liver, spleen and other sites within the cavity. PhG-alpha-1 was administered intraperitoneally at three doses (one, five and 10 mg/kg body weight), alone and in combination with a conventional chemotherapeutic agent at subtherapeutic dose, over up to a 98-day period. In the group receiving PhG-alpha-1 alone at the 10 mg/kg dose, an improvement in survival relative to the control group was observed from day 50 to 80. In the group receiving PhG-alpha-1 at 10 mg/kg in combination with chemotherapy, survival relative to the group receiving chemotherapy alone was evident throughout the test period.
Overall tumour incidence was 46 per cent in the groups receiving PhG-alpha-1 alone, at all dosages, compared with 80 per cent in the saline control group, and was 60 per cent in groups receiving PhG-alpha-1 in combination therapy, compared with 100 per cent for the chemotherapy control.
Measurement of VEGF serum levels (vascular endothelial growth factor, an angiogenic (growth of blood vessels) agent increasing tumour malignancy) confirmed earlier results showing reduction in VEGF levels following treatment with PhG-alpha-1.
Additional models
Analysis of data from two additional models using two different human colon cancer cell lines continues and results will be announced as they become available over the course of the next few weeks. Previous tests showed the drug's effectiveness in delaying the ability of human cancer cells to form tumours in mice, when administration of PhG-alpha-1 alone or in combination with chemotherapeutic agents began immediately following the introduction of the cancer cells to the mouse test subject. The current round of testing just completed -- known as an established tumour study (ETS) -- mimics the therapeutic treatment regime found in clinical treatment of humans, in that the drug treatment regimen is commenced only after tumours are allowed to develop without treatment.
These test results provide positive indication that PhG-alpha-1 has the ability to be developed into an effective agent against cancer in test models designed to mimic real world therapy regimes encountered in clinical treatment of humans.
KABOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
TORONTO, Apr 15, 2008 (Canada NewsWire via COMTEX) -- TriNorth Capital Inc. (TSX: TRT.TO) is pleased to announce its participation in an $80 million private placement offering of securities of MagMinerals Potash Corp. ("MagMinerals") that closed on April 4, 2008. TriNorth invested $3 million in MagMinerals at $4.00 per share for 750,000 shares. It is anticipated that MagMinerals will go public before the end of 2008.
MagMinerals has exclusive rights to one of the largest carnallite deposits in the world in the Republic of Congo with potash production expected to commence in Q1 2011. Strategically located in West Africa, MagMinerals' proximity to rail transport and a high capacity port combined with short shipping distances to high demand markets in Africa and South America create the potential for the best economics in the potash industry.
"TriNorth is currently evaluating several early stage investments in the fertilizer space," said Ravi Sood, President of Lawrence Asset Management Inc, the Manager of TriNorth. "We expect the fundamentals for fertilizers and potash in particular to remain compelling for some time. MagMinerals is an advanced project with an excellent management team and a path to liquidity already in place making it an attractive investment for TriNorth."
About TriNorth
TriNorth is a Canadian-based investment company that invests in a diversified portfolio of companies to generate long-term capital growth for shareholders. TriNorth takes an active interest in its investee companies from the earliest stages, providing strategic and financial counsel, support and direction to assist in their growth and success. TriNorth's investment strategy includes structuring and initiating deals focused on particular resources, themes or regions as well as launching the development of businesses in select industries by providing assistance with the hiring of management teams, providing seed capital and facilitating IPOs. All investment activities of TriNorth are managed by Lawrence Asset Management Inc, a leading Canadian alternative investment asset manager.
New corporate presentation on the website http://www.potash1.com/i/pdf/Presentation_April-3-2008.pdf
rerun? cant hurt :)
sure, new ath Friday would work for me
little Scotia cross today
Nice of Investors Hub to post thier crap charts in board headers
end of day move
Connections...
Asian placees who will assist the company with its continuing development strategy
Whats going on????????????
Bush officials defend ethanol as food prices rise
Tue Apr 15, 2008 6:48pm BST
By Christopher Doering
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senior Bush Administration officials reiterated their defense of corn-based ethanol fuel on Tuesday, saying it was one factor in rising food prices but that high energy costs were the main culprit.
Ethanol makers will consume about one-quarter of the 13.1-billion-bushel U.S. corn crop this year, according to the Agriculture Department, a forecast that is increasingly alarming world governments and food aid workers.
"Certainly, that is a factor as we are seeing the rising food costs out there," U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer told CNBC. "It's not the factor, however. Energy is the big issue as we look at those food prices," he added.
Consumer food prices normally rise by about 2.5 percent annually, but they increased by 4 percent in 2007, the biggest increase in 17 years. And forecasts for 2008 are pointing to a another rise of 3 percent to 4 percent, USDA said in February.
A key goal of the Bush administration has been to boost supplies of renewable fuels to reduce the country's dependence on foreign energy.
But corn prices are rocketing to record highs, which will raise prices for a variety of products as corn is widely used as feed for livestock. Corn for delivery in May rose 15-1/4 cents to $6.07 a bushel at the Chicago Board of Trade Tuesday.
Asked about the food crisis and how it related to biofuels, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the two were related but there were a host of other issues involved, such as high transportation costs of food.
"We have an energy and a food problem. There are some relationships between them," Rice told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.
"We also think a significant part of the food problem relates not from biofuels but from simply the costs of energy in terms of fertilizer and in terms of transportation costs for food," she added.
Food prices have taken on even more importance as oil prices have risen. U.S. crude futures rose sharply to a record high near $114 a barrel on Tuesday at the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Schafer also was asked if he favors releasing more land for farming. About 34.7 million acres are enrolled in the U.S. Conservation Reserve Program. The reserve, the largest U.S. land retirement program, pays landowners an annual rent in exchange for idling environmentally sensitive land.
Schafer said 1 million acres were coming out of program this year and 4.5 million next year, but USDA is not sure if the land is going to be re-enrolled.
"The reality is, if you planted all of that into corn, you might affect the price maybe 20 cents," said Schafer.
The increased use of grains to produce biofuels along with growing global demand for food has lead to grain shortages, rising prices, bread lines, and food riots around the globe.
Ya we are overdue for a breakout!
btw nice signature
Coxe Commodity Strategy Fund Announces Initial Public Offering
TORONTO, April 14 /CNW/ - Coxe Commodity Strategy Fund (the "Fund") is
pleased to announce that it has filed a preliminary prospectus in respect of
an initial public offering of Class A Combined Units and Class F Combined
Units of the Fund. Combined Units consist of one Unit together with a Warrant
to purchase one Unit.
The Fund has been created to provide investors with long-term capital
growth by executing the commodity investment strategies of Donald G.M. Coxe.
Harris Investment Management, Inc. is the investment manager and will be
responsible for implementing the Fund's investment strategy. Mr. Coxe will act
as Portfolio Consultant to the Fund.
The syndicate of agents for the offerings is being led by BMO Nesbitt
Burns Inc. and includes National Bank Financial Inc., Scotia Capital Inc., TD
Securities Inc., Berkshire Securities Inc., Blackmont Capital Inc., Canaccord
Capital Corporation, Dundee Securities Corporation, HSBC Securities (Canada)
Inc., Raymond James Ltd., Richardson Partners Financial Limited and Wellington
West Capital Inc.
A preliminary prospectus containing important information relating to
these securities has been filed with securities commissions or similar
authorities in certain jurisdictions of Canada. The preliminary prospectus is
still subject to completion or amendment. Copies of the preliminary prospectus
may be obtained from your IDA registered financial advisor. There will not be
any sale or any acceptance of an offer to buy the securities until a receipt
for the final prospectus has been issued.
This board used to be your baby!
Arcus Development options Chapalota from Riverside
2008-04-14 06:17 MT - News Release
Mr. Ian Talbot reports
ARCUS DEVELOPMENT GROUP OPTIONS CHAPALOTA GOLD PROSPECT FROM RIVERSIDE RESOURCES
Subject to TSX Venture Exchange acceptance, Riverside Resources Inc. has granted Arcus Development Group Inc. an option to acquire up to a 65-per-cent interest in the Chapalota gold prospect, located in southern Sinaloa, Mexico, near Geoinformatics's La Noria project and south of US Gold's Magistral mine. The Chapalota property was acquired by Riverside through staking and is wholly owned by Riverside.
To exercise an initial option and acquire a 51-per-cent interest in the Chapalota property, Arcus is required to pay Riverside $300,000 cash, issue 350,000 Arcus shares to Riverside and incur exploration expenditures of $4-million prior to the fourth anniversary of the option agreement. Exploration expenditures in year one of the initial option include a firm commitment of $350,000. After exercising the initial option, Arcus will have a second option to acquire an additional 14-per-cent interest in the property by incurring a further $2.5-million in exploration expenditures within a two-year period and by paying Riverside $500,000.
The Chapalota property is not subject to any underlying royalty interests and no finder's fee will be paid in connection with the Arcus option.
Eric Tweedie, the Arcus vice-president of exploration, stated: "The Chapalota property represents an excellent exploration opportunity for Arcus based on the geological setting and past gold production in the region. Riverside's team has done a very good job of identifying high-quality precious metals prospects in areas that have not been extensively explored in the past."
Good country by country overview on rice shartage
Asian states feel rice pinch http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7324596.stm
India -
But the International Rice Research Institute says that the sustainability of rice farming in India and beyond is threatened by overuse of fertilisers and soil health. Stocks have come down over the last three years as agricultural growth has failed to match the rest of the economy.
China -
Though short term supplies are secured, there are concerns that urbanisation and industrial development are putting pressure on farming.
Was when you posted it too.
It appears that India and China are willing to pay short term to avoid a crisis.
I wonder what their long term plans are?
So buy SKF Monday morning?
I used to be but quit, if I try I get this lol
We appreciate your interest in Moderating this board, but you haven't written any posts on this board recently.
Please make a few posts and then you'll be able to submit a request to be Mod.
All kinds of wierd things they work on here like hard to read fancy faded headers and email spam but do you think they could make it so it displays your local time?
go for it
Hi rtenn,
You nailed my top three holdings (in reverse order).
As for seasonality and entry look at the charts...
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=28290475
good luck with your decisions
SQM ADR Begins Trading Under New Ratio
2008-03-31 13:11 MT - News Release
SANTIAGO, Chile, March 31 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile S.A. (SQM) announced today that its series B ADR has begun trading under the new 1:1 ratio of ordinary shares to ADRs. As announced earlier this month, by modifying the previous ratio of 10 ordinary shares to 1 ADR, the Company aims to improve liquidity and make its shares accessible to the broadest investment community. The Company's underlying ordinary shares traded on the Santiago Stock Exchange are not affected by the change in ADR ratio.
The ratio change had the same effect as a ten-for-one share split and was reflected in SQM's share price, which changed from its closing price of US$232.49 on Friday, March 28 to an opening price of US$23.50 today.
SQM is an integrated producer and distributor of specialty plant nutrients, iodine and lithium. Its products are based on the development of high quality natural resources that allow the Company to be leader in costs, supported by a specialized international network with sales in over 100 countries. SQM's development strategy aims to maintain and strengthen the Company's world leadership in its three core businesses: Specialty Plant Nutrition, Iodine and Lithium.
http://www.sqm.com/aspx/en/Default.aspx
Don Coxe is pounding the table again but I think this time the table legs gave out lol
http://events.startcast.com/events/199/B0003/#
12:00 - He nearly has a heart attack describing how investors still view ag and commodity stocks as riskier than bank stocks
12:50 - Freudian slip trying to say "most of the big wall street banks" spits out "most of the big BAD BAD wall street banks"
Mosaic to consider listing on TSX
RICHARD BLACKWELL
April 11, 2008
Mosaic Co., a giant U.S. fertilizer producer whose stock has multiplied fourfold in the past year, is considering a listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
The Minnesota-based company, the world's second largest potash producer after Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc., will likely decide within the next year if it will apply for a Canadian listing, chief executive officer James Prokopanko said in an interview yesterday.
Because the company has three large - and expanding - potash mines in Saskatchewan, and a joint-venture nitrogen plant there, a listing on the TSX would make sense, Mr. Prokopanko said.
"We employ about 2,400 people in Canada, and a serious amount of earnings are being generated from our potash business, [so] it's a question we're asking ourselves," he said. "It is open to consideration."
A Canadian listing could expand the company's investor base, and boost its profile in Canada, he said, especially as the TSX is such a draw for mining businesses.
As a U.S.-based company, Mosaic would not qualify for inclusion on the S&P/TSX composite index, or other Canadian indexes, despite its huge market capitalization of about $54-billion (U.S.).
While it has a large Canadian presence, Mosaic has a relatively low profile in Canada, especially compared to Potash Corp., which now has the fifth largest weighting on the S&P/TSX composite.
Mosaic's stock, which is currently listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has appreciated even more dramatically than Potash Corp.'s in recent months. Potash is valued at triple its price of a year ago.
Both companies have benefited from a big jump in fertilizer prices, buoyed by demand from farmers who are getting more for their grains and facing tremendous demand for higher production.
The farming boom is "an agricultural renaissance around the world," said Mr. Prokopanko, who was born and raised in Manitoba. "Farmers are finally getting a decent return for the investments they have made over the decades."
He sees the main reason for the agricultural boom as the shift in economic circumstances of millions of people in developing countries, who are adding more grain-intense foods such as meat and dairy products to their diets.
The shift to grain-based biofuels has helped buoy the business, he said, but it is a far less important factor.
In addition to its Canadian potash mines and nitrogen plant, Mosaic also has huge phosphate mining operations in the United States, where it is the world's largest producer of that fertilizer commodity.
Mr. Prokopanko said there is still considerable room for growth in Mosaic's business, and thus further room for stock price growth.
"I really don't believe this is a bubble," he said. "Where this is different than some of the other exceptional runups in valuations is that ... this is real value being created from making stuff and moving stuff."
The expansion of Mosaic's Canadian potash mines - in Esterhazy, Colonsay and Belle Plaine, Sask. - will take place over the next five years, and involve an investment of roughly $3.1-billion. About 800 people will be added to the company payroll as a result.
In Canada, the company is unlikely to expand beyond Saskatchewan, he said. While phosphate deposits in Ontario could be of interest, "I think it's going to be a stretch to get [them] developed."
Banking on Brazil
Canada's potash mines feed growing world appetite
Rod Nickel
The StarPhoenix
Friday, April 11, 2008
NEAR ARARAS, Brazil -- Gilberto Lima walks into his private jungle of sugarcane, slices off a stalk and studies the sweet, moist centre.
For 40 years, Lima's family has grown sugarcane on Fazenda Pinhalzinho (Little Pine Farm), selling it to sweeten everything from Coke to candy.
In today's Brazil, it's more lucrative than ever.
Lima's top crop, flanked by his soybean fields and orange groves, is fuelling Brazil's world-leading ethanol industry. At gas stations across the country, a litre of alcohol costs about one real (about 60 cents Cdn) less than the same amount of gasoline. Motorists are saving money at the pumps, but farmers raising cane are the real winners.
"Oil is $100 a barrel," says Lima, just 32 and running the farm. "So sugarcane has more future for me than oranges."
Sugarcane is just one of the reasons Brazil is the new global titan of agriculture. Brazil has used its year-round growing season and surplus of arable land to become a dominant producer of soybeans, oranges, coffee, beef and poultry.
But it couldn't happen without potash. Mined mostly in Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Belarus/Russia, the mineral makes up for the Brazil farm economy's weakness -- deficient soil.
Brazil's red earth is notoriously lacking in potassium, forcing it to import 6.7 million tonnes of Canadian potash last year. That's a 24 per cent jump in one year.
"(Potash) is a precious thing," Lima says, strolling his 4,000 acre farm 170 kilometres northwest of Sao Paulo. "We know everything that sugarcane takes from the soil and we have to replace it. (Potash) is the base of everything."
Fertilizer giant Heringer offers just as emphatic a testimonial.
Heringer, one of Brazil's largest fertilizer companies, gets about one-quarter of its potash from Canada. It would take more, but the supply is exhausted, leaving it to import more of its potash -- at greater transportation cost -- from Belarus.
"In the coming years, Canada will have more product and Canada will become the first (potash supplier for Heringer)," says Eduardo Tadeu Paiva, Heringer's director of supplies and logistics.
"Our target is Canpotex," he says of the agency that markets Canadian potash. "It's very important for our company, because (Canada) is closer than Russia."
The soaring stock of potash comes down to this: The world's population is growing, eating better and demanding more food. In eight of the last nine years, the world has consumed more grain than it has produced, causing grain stocks to be drawn down, says Stephen Dowdle, senior vice-president of fertilizer sales with Potash Corp. of Saskatachewan, the world's biggest potash supplier. The expanding ethanol industry only drives up potash demand by pitting energy versus food, says Alex Airosa, who heads Potafertz, a Sao Paulo company arranging potash sales between Canada and Brazil.
The resulting high commodity prices of wheat, soya, sugarcane and citrus -- among others -- give farmers more to spend on fertilizer.
Demand in emerging countries like Brazil is fuelling a modern-day "potash" rush by mining companies. Plans to dig new mines in Canada, while expanding and improving other ones now total at least $7.5 billion:
q Mosaic announced just last week it will spend $3.15 billion during the next 12 years expanding mines at Esterhazy, Colonsay and Belle Plaine, creating 700 permanent jobs and increasing production by 50 per cent;
q PotashCorp. is spending $1.8 billion to expand its Rocanville site that will tap two million tonnes more potash per year by 2012;
q A new $1.6-billion mine in Sussex, N.B. will become PotashCorp.'s main supplier to Brazil when it opens in 2011;
q Calgary-based Anglo Potash, with the backing of Australian mining conglomeration BHP Billiton, has assembled potash permits for 1.8 million acres of land in Saskatchewan. It is studying the feasibility of digging east of Lanigan Saskatchewan's first new mine in 38 years;
q Agrium completed a smaller-scale expansion of its Vanscoy mine last year and is now considering new mines in the same location and one in western Manitoba;
q PCS is spending $775 million and $105 million respectively to boost output of its Cory and Patience Lake mines near Saskatoon.
Dowdle says Canadian mining companies are expanding as fast as they can, but even those projects are unlikely to quench the world's thirst for potash.
That means Saskatchewan may not have heard its last multi-billion-dollar potash announcement.
"The thing about potash is you don't just find it anywhere," Dowdle says in a Sao Paulo boardroom. "And Saskatchewan has one of the best reserves in the world. It's hard to project 20-30 years, but you have to think places like Saskatchewan that are sitting on world-class reserves are going to benefit.
"If you can invest in Russia or Saskatchewan, where would you go? Saskatchewan is going to capture the lion's share of the growth of production."
Import volumes tell the story of why booming Brazil means new billion-dollar projects in Saskatchewan and New Brunswick. PCS shipped nearly one quarter of its exported potash into Brazil last year, making it the company's best offshore market.
"The consumption and demand for grain has caught up to the capacity to produce grain," Dowdle says. "As long as that supply demand remains elevated, the resurgence in fertilizer is going to stay.
"This cycle really has some legs to it."
----
Inside a warehouse three football fields long in the Port of Santos, nine-metre-high heaps of pink potash granules slope down from the ceiling to walls.
Ports like Santos are ground zero for Saskatchewan's potash industry in South America. Ships from Vancouver and Saint John unload up to 55 tonnes of potash at a time -- once they can dock.
It's common for the two major fertilizer ports of Santos and Paranagua to leave ships moored in the Atlantic 20-40 days waiting to unload. Brazil may be gathering strength, but it's hobbled by decades of government neglect of major infrastructure.
"It's a tremendous challenge," says Airosa.
The channel ships travel into the Port of Santos is too narrow and shallow. On the land side of nearby Port Paranagua -- the country's biggest fertilizer port -- highways back up with 60-kilometre lines of trucks waiting to deliver soybeans and load potash.
Potash Corp. is so bullish on its future in Brazil -- and so frustrated with port delays -- it spent $12 million with a local partner last year buying and fixing up two rundown terminals at the port.
"It's a huge asset for us," says Dowdle of the Perola terminal.
PCS previously leased space from Bunge, one of its top customers for potash and also a main competitor in feed phosphate. That complicated relationship usually resulted in Bunge shipments taking priority, says Mark Boulanger, general manager of Brazil operations for PCS.
Owning its own terminal at one of South America's most important ports is about efficiency, but also a recognition of the growing volumes of potash PCS expects to ship. The terminals can process up to 1.5 million tonnes of product annually.
Once it enters a Brazilian port, fertilizer companies like Heringer and Bunge take possession of the potash they purchased through Canpotex or, in the case of New Brunswick potash, directly from PCS.
Heringer then blends the potash into bags in simple warehouses close to both farms and major ports. Last year, it produced almost 3.3 tonnes of fertilizer, about half of which it sold directly to farmers.
"Brazilian farms are getting more technology," says Heringer manager Fernando Limonge. "And they use more fertilizer."
Canadian potash companies still have considerable room to grow in Brazil. Canpotex and PCS accounted for roughly one-third of potash exports into Brazil last year, only slightly ahead of Biellarussian Potash Co., which has a major transportation disadvantage.
The problem isn't demand -- it's boosting supply fast enough.
Potash companies are competing as much with the Alberta oilsands as with each other in the race to expand. Finding the equipment, engineers and labour force to build new mines, not to mention work in them, is a drag on how fast Canadian mining companies can chase demand.
"I don't think we could do any more," Dowdle says.
Brazil produces a small percentage of its potash needs at home, but the heat frustrates mining efforts. Mine temperatures usually exceed 38 C, too hot to work, says Boulanger. Once potash is brought to the surface, the heat quickly turns it to mush, he said.
"Potash loves the cold," he said.
----
The landscape of Brazilian farm country is turning green.
For decades, land cleared of dry forest in the centre of the country was an afterthought in the agricultural economy. Farmers used the hilly land as pasture until it was grazed out.
On those lands today, soya sprout in two to three growing seasons per year. Soya is the most multipurpose of crops, as food for humans, animals and in industrial uses like glue and oil products. The United States once dominated the soya world, until Brazil's seemingly limitless supply of arable land, cheap labour and year-round growing season left it eating its red dust.
In 2007-08, Brazilian farmers planted nearly 22 million hectares of soya, producing 59 million tonnes to make it the country's most prolific crop.
"It's huge," says PCS' Boulanger of soya's importance to future growth of potash sales. "The ethanol thing is really frosting on the cake."
The exhausted pasture lands where much of the soya crop is expanding are particularly deficent in nutrients.
More than any other agriculture heavyweight, Brazil can withstand commodity price swings that may one day make sugarcane and soya less profitable. It still dominates with its traditional coffee and citrus crops.
Corn remains a close second to soya among the biggest harvests in Brazil.
Most promising of all, there's room to grow. Less than half of Brazil's arable land is in use, not including sensitive rainforest.
Brazilian demand for potash is showing no signs of slowing down this year. In fact, it's unusually strong for sugarcane and soybean crops, Scotiabank reported last month. The result is record potash prices at Port of Vancouver -- more than doubling year over year -- for the first three months of the year. And that's just the beginning, according to Scotiabank.
It forecasts potash prices will hit the uncharted heights of $500-600 US per tonne in the next six months.
----
On Fazenda Pinhalzinho, Gilberto Lima has tough decisions to make.
The most recent planting of sugarcane is nine feet tall. The orange harvest and Lima's lambs will balance out another good year. But even success poses dilemmas.
Lima is known in his community northwest of Sao Paulo as a modern farmer, sometimes with the scorn of his tradition-minded neighbours.
He proudly shows off his new $85,000 US tractor, outfitted with global positioning technology to precisely apply the fertilizer he says is too expensive to waste. GPS may be common on North American farms, but cost-conscious Brazilian farmers are harder to win over. Many are not even convinced of the merits of fertilizer.
"Unfortunately most of them think they don't need technology," Lima says.
"Just a little part (of) farmers in Brazil are professionals."
As focused as Lima is on the future, history is never far from his mind. Seventy men and women work on the family farm, many of them working there longer than Lima himself. On this day, seven or eight workers gather bundles of cut grass in his yard, while another two supervise. On another farm, in another culture, a farmer might cut down the manual labour that is becoming less relevant in an age of sugarcane harvesting machines, GPS and fertilizer.
Lima hopes there is another way.
"Many of them don't know how to do anything else but work on a farm. That's the most serious problem the farmers have, because they have a huge responsibility (for) their lives."
Lima might be feeling conflicted about the new prosperity. But he can't see himself doing anything else.
"We do this because we love it," he says, with a note of gravity.
"Agriculture is in my blood."
rnickel@sp.canwest.com
Rod Nickel travelled to Brazil with the assistance of a fellowship from Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership.
TOMORROW: Small crop, big market
FAST FACTS
- Brazil's population is 186 million
- World's largest orange juice exporter, coffee producer, beef and poultry exporter
- Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country and the fourth-largest fertilizer market
- Potash Corp of Saskatchewan produced 9 million tonnes of potash in the past year. By 2015, expanded mines are expected to push that number to 17 million tonnes
- Canadian potash companies exported 6.7 million tonnes to Brazil in 2007, up from 5.4 million tonnes in 2006
Sources: Heringer, PotashCorp of Saskatchewan
This star may be too hot to handle
DAVID BERMAN
Globe and Mail Update
April 11, 2008 at 9:17 PM EDT
In stock-picking terms, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. is an example of a stock that has “gone parabolic”: After rising steadily, its gains have recently increased at an exponential rate, making its stock chart resemble a jet after takeoff.
That's great news if you already own the stock and are considering cashing in. But if you're thinking about hopping on board this flight, consider waiting on the tarmac a little longer.
Potash Corp.'s returns have astounded investors in recent years. Since the start of 2004, the stock has risen more than 900 per cent after dividends are factored in. That beats the benchmark index by a factor of 11 over the same time period and the red-hot materials subindex by a factor of six.
You think gold is soaring? Potash Corp.'s return wallops Barrick Gold Corp.'s return by a factor of 16. You think the BlackBerry is the world's greatest invention? Potash Corp. outpaced Research In Motion Ltd.'s return by a cool 24 per cent since 2004.
The stock has also climbed the ranks of the top-weighted stocks within the S&P/TSX composite index to No. 3 today from No. 30 in 2004. That's right, it has a bigger role in the index than all but one of the big banks (Royal Bank of Canada) and all but one energy producer (EnCana Corp.).
The agriculture boom is the big reason why the stock now has the profile of a Hollywood celebrity. Potash Corp. produces the key ingredients for fertilizer, which is in high demand throughout the world as more and more people put meat on their dinner tables. (By some conservative estimates, it takes three to four pounds of grain to put one pound of beef on the table.)
Some observers believe this trend is permanent – that the agriculture boom is not going to be followed by a bust, as typical cycles are, but will endure for a long time. That means potash prices, which have been soaring in recent years, will remain high because demand is insatiable and supplies are limited. This year alone, potash prices have soared by about 80 per cent, with India and China in particular paying far more for than they used to.
Fai Lee, an analyst at Royal Bank of Canada's investment arm, believes Potash Corp.'s share price will hit $255 within the next 12 months – or 40 per cent higher than yesterday's close – and he's not alone in his enthusiasm. Of the 13 analysts who cover the stock, 10 recommend it as a “buy” and no one recommends selling it.
That, however, is part of the problem: How can this stock possibly surprise the market with good news when most of the good news is already factored into the price?
The stock currently trades at 23 times estimated earnings, giving it a steep valuation. One stumble – say, potash prices rise only 15 per cent next year or China's meat consumption plateaus or the global economy takes a tumble or new supplies of potash threaten to pour into the market and create a glut – will certainly end Potash Corp.'s winning streak.
Despite the stock's amazing run, it has suffered the occasional setback after the market loses faith in the bullish argument. The last time, in January, the stock fell 20 per cent in a matter of days. It will take another bout of skepticism to make the stock attractive again.
A lot more than wheat
DAVID EBNER
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
April 11, 2008 at 9:16 PM EDT
SASKATOON — Grant Isaac, when he left, never thought he'd be back.
Hailing from a family of sports broadcasters out of Regina, Mr. Isaac studied economics at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. After finishing his masters, he and his wife moved to England, where Mr. Isaac did his PhD at the London School of Economics. A world of opportunity was at hand.
But they chose, in 2000, to return. Sensing change, sensing possibility, sensing something percolating, the spirits of their forebears, pioneers who made a life out of a hard land, in the middle of nowhere.
“Everything just seemed to be pointing in the direction of change,” Mr. Isaac remembered of the emerging ambitions of his home province this week over a coffee in Saskatoon.
Real estate agent Larry Stewart is being kept busy with the Saskatoon real estate boom
Now the young dean of the Edwards School of Business at the university – named after Murray Edwards, the Regina-born, Calgary-based energy billionaire – Mr. Isaac has a wide vantage from which to watch Saskatchewan enjoy a boom. And, yes, for some locals, with memories of good times that too often turned sour so quickly, there is the dead weight of fear – can it really last?
But the boom, Mr. Isaac said, hasn't even really started.
“People are talking about it in the present tense – but it's not even here yet,” Mr. Isaac said. “The boom is still coming.”
This province, with a population only a bit higher than it was in the 1920s, is enjoying the best times of its century-long history, riding multiple booms in commodity prices. Government, once so central to the economy, has stepped back and instead embraced a more business-friendly agenda, including corporate tax cuts.
Predicted to lead Canada in economic growth this year, Saskatchewan is a land of food and fuel – feeding North America, and the world. It is the country's second-largest oil producer. It leads the world in uranium. And its grains are more valuable than ever.
“The world needs lots of what we have,” Mr. Isaac said. “For the most part, we're in uncharted waters. And when you've gone through tough times, you learn how to develop a competitive edge.”
The long road to success – and the possibility that the real ride is just beginning – is embodied by Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc., headquartered in an 11-storey downtown office building in Saskatoon. It is a modest home for the world's biggest potash producer and the fifth-most-valuable name on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Worth $58-billion – the stock has nearly tripled in the past year – Potash Corp. ranks behind only Research In Motion Ltd., EnCana Corp., Royal Bank of Canada and Manulife Financial in market capitalization.
Bigger than every energy company but one. Bigger than every financial services company but two.
Potash?
Potash, the commodity, not the company, lies below much of southern Saskatchewan. First discovered in the 1940s when people were drilling for oil, it is mined to produce a sizable fraction of the world's fertilizer.
Potash strengthens plant roots, improving their ability to retain water, making them hardier and generating more bushels per hectare. It is fuel for food: Corn, wheat, soybeans.
And those foods, like potash and oil, are at record prices, buoyed primarily by global demand for food coming from richer and ever-growing populations, as well as the added demand from biofuels and the spread of meat eating, as the new middle classes in China and other emerging economies add steak to their plates.
Saskatchewan is the Saudi Arabia of potash, producer of a quarter of the world's supply. And like oil, potash has never been more profitable. Bill Doyle, chief executive officer of Potash, was feted as “the fertilizer king” on CNBC earlier this year and delivers a tempered but powerfully bullish message to investors: Profits are soaring.
“And we believe we're at the front end of it,” Mr. Doyle told investors at Bank of Montreal's global fertilizer conference this month in Toronto.
Profit was $1.1-billion in 2007, Potash's fourth-consecutive record year, up more than 70 per cent from 2006. The company says it can more than double profit this year and burst through the $2-billion mark. Such growth has turned Potash into an unlikely market darling, with its stock carrying a lofty tech-like valuation comparable to that of the little BlackBerry maker out of Waterloo, Ont.
Potash, the company, not the commodity, has been preparing for this moment for two decades. It was a Crown corporation, owned by the province, that was set free in 1989 with a $300-million initial public offering.
Like oil and other commodities, potash rides booms and busts. Booms sow the seeds of busts as new production is rushed to the stage to take advantage of rising prices. Slowly but surely, supply drowns demand. It happened in the 1960s. Another peak was reached in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
“We've seen the bad times, for sure,” said Wayne Brownlee, Potash chief financial officer, who grew up in Biggar, Sask., the son of a railway conductor. Saddled with a “crazy” provincial and federal marginal tax rate of around 85 per cent, Potash began carefully making the moves that have made Mr. Doyle today's fertilizer king.
Mr. Brownlee, who became chief financial officer in 1999, helped lead expansion and business development. And over several rounds of negotiations with the then-NDP government in Saskatchewan, including promises to invest more in the province, the company's marginal tax rate fell substantially, now sitting a bit below 50 per cent.
Price control
The key challenge for Potash, from the start of its public life, was to exert influence on the price of its principal product to escape the boom-bust cycle. The fertilizer game is one played by only a few players. So Potash, already a heavyweight, began to consolidate available assets in Canada and picked up stakes in foreign producers in Israel, Jordan and Chile and a key potash distributor in China.
With every bit of additional girth – 13 deals worth about $1-billion over a decade and a half – Potash's price-controlling muscle grew. Instead of producing as much as possible during booms, the company sought to influence price by matching its output to demand by carrying excess capacity or idling existing capacity.
Reminds you of a certain Arab oil producer?
To augment its revenue streams and insulate earnings from potash price swings, the company also diversified into related fertilizer businesses, phosphates and nitrogen holdings. Potash spent about $1.7-billion in 1995 and 1997, underpinning its position as a top producer today of both those commodities.
Now, with potash prices – and those for fertilizers in general – soaring, Potash is plowing money back in to Saskatchewan. The majority of the company's planned $5-billion expansion will be in the province. By adding capacity to existing mines, Potash aims to increase production capacity by almost 50 per cent by 2012 to 15.7 million tonnes a year from 10.8 million in 2007.
At Lanigan, east of Saskatoon, the first major addition of 1.5 million tonnes is set to come on in the next several months, with $400-million spent to refurbish a mill idled in the mid-1980s.
At Cory, just outside of Saskatoon, $900-million has been invested to add 1.2 million tonnes of production capacity.
In New Brunswick, a new $1.7-billion mine is being built to open in 2011 to add two million tonnes.
And at Rocanville, east of Regina, a two-million-tonne expansion costing $1.8-billion is planned to be ready in 2012.
Judiciously adding production, as prices and profits are rising, has added to the allure of the Potash story for investors. The combination of market dominance, higher prices for the products and significant additional production has cast a bright spotlight on Potash, even if the company might not be well known among average Canadians or even the typical business page reader.
“When you're not based in Calgary, when you're not in Toronto, and you're not a retail product, then I think you don't get the camera attention all that much,” Mr. Brownlee said. “And frankly, I think that's okay.”
Population Growth
In 1901, less than 100,000 people lived in Saskatchewan. By the end of the 1920s, it was nearly one million. But the Depression was a vicious blow, from which the province never fully recovered – until now – with the population breaking past the one million mark.
There's a sad kind of joke people here tell, that during the past couple decades, the province's biggest export was its people (and mostly to Alberta).
Murray Edwards, raised and schooled in Regina, was one. His grandparents had been homesteaders in the province and imbued him with an “attitude of getting things done and being creative.”
He studied law at the University of Toronto before returning west, but to Calgary, not Saskatchewan. At the age of 28, with $100,000 of his own money and several partners, he founded what would become the country's second-largest oil and natural gas producer, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., one of many oil patch success stories powered by Saskatchewan brains.
“The only real opportunity at the time was Alberta,” Mr. Edwards said. “There was a period, what you could call the challenging years, where the province's confidence was struggling. Now you're seeing that pioneering spirit re-emerge.”
The province may still be seen mostly as rural agriculture place but its economy is far beyond that antiquated image. Mining, oil and natural gas, and manufacturing make up about 20 per cent of the economy, and are triple the size of the farming business, according to the Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy at the University of Regina.
Oil is particularly hot. The province produces more than 400,000 barrels a day, almost as much as Alberta, excluding the oil sands. And the Bakken play in the southeastern area of the province, unlocked in the past couple years by advances in drilling technology, is on fire, promoted as the second-largest oil field ever found in Canada.
On Thursday, the government announced that energy explorers continue to flood the provincial treasury, chasing opportunities in the Bakken and spending an off-the-scale $266-million at this month's auction of new exploration rights. The previous record for an entire year, reached in 2007, was $250-million.
“This level of interest is unprecedented and speaks to the optimism about the economic prospects of both our province and our No. 1 industry,” said Bill Boyd, Energy Minister, adding that royalties in the province are stable, taking a quiet but deliberately competitive stab at Alberta, where royalties are rising.
Saskatchewan, unbelievably, is on pace to bring in more dollars for new exploration rights than Alberta this year, which has never happened before.
Crescent Point Energy Trust, the leading Bakken producer, figures it could spend as much as $5-billion over a couple decades of drilling. This year, Scott Saxberg, Crescent Point CEO, forecasts industry spending of $800-million in development dollars, with about half of the money invested by his company – big dollars for a small province.
“A year ago, we thought we had 80 or 90 per cent of the pool,” Mr. Saxberg said. “As we drilled step-outs, it expanded the play dramatically.”
Major Exploration
Saskatchewan has become a land of exploration, of explorers. According to the Saskatchewan Mining Association, about a half billion dollars has been spent searching for new finds in the past two years, with half going to uranium and a third to diamonds, seen by many as a potential major future industry.
And while it's a commodities-fuelled boom, Saskatchewan is about more than raw resources.
On the grounds of the university in Saskatoon, Canada's only synchrotron – a cyclic particle accelerator – is housed in a massive silver structure the size of a football field. Owned by the University of Saskatchewan and funded by several Canadian governments and universities, the machine was completed several years ago and is a critical tool for research in fields ranging from health sciences to communications technology.
Located nearby, POS Pilot Plant Corp., started about 30 years ago by the federal and provincial government to research new agriculture techniques, has a waiting list for its services.
The lab is a regular stop for multinationals such as Monsanto that want to test new products or methods, and also for domestic firms such as CV Technologies Inc. of Edmonton, the maker of Cold-fX, and startups like Bio-Extraction Inc., a Toronto company building an advanced canola crushing facility in Saskatchewan.
“You've got to translate what you can do in a lab to an industrial scale,” said Paul Fedec, head scientist at POS.
The drivers of the boom, to date, suggest that it has room to run, as Mr. Isaac forecasts. Because of global food demand, and annual production falling short of that hunger, forcing the world to draw on stored grains, the outlook for fertilizer and Saskatchewan wheat appears as solid as one can hope for in a commodity business. The same for oil – and unlike heavier lower-grade oil typical in Alberta and parts of Saskatchewan – the oil coming out of the Bakken is the kind that sells for $110 a barrel. With record dollars just now piling in for new exploration rights, the real economic action is still ahead.
Will The Boom Last?
“Can it last? Sure, it already has. And we expect it to continue,” said Craig Wright, chief economist at Royal Bank. In a report looking at growth across Canada published this month, Mr. Wright called Saskatchewan the new “it” province – evoking language of the latest Hollywood starlet – and predicted Saskatchewan will lead economic growth in Canada this year.
“Saskatchewan is the new Alberta,” Mr. Wright said.
The province ranks first on a long list of economic indicators – very much like Alberta in recent years, Mr. Wright said, and optimism among the populace is tangible, making more money and spending more. Retail sales growth of nearly 10 per cent leads the country, as does growth of personal disposable income in the same ballpark.
In real estate, the response has been dramatic, stoking Vancouver-Calgary-Toronto-like madness. Saskatoon, a pleasant city of about 200,000 – the province's largest – is going off the hook. On the business side, Colliers McClocklin reports that industrial vacancy “fell below the 2-per-cent mark for the first time in recorded history during the second half of 2007 and is predicted to continue well into 2008.” The residential market is just as wild, with prices up more than 50 per cent – a leap made after prices had already been ticking up.
“There's no doubts – ‘Should I buy? Is the market going to crash?' – they're totally, 100 per cent optimistic,” said Larry Stewart, broker-owner of Re/Max Saskatoon. “It's different from Toronto, where people are wondering what's going on. Even in Calgary and Edmonton, people are about to buy but think, ‘Well, let's just wait to see what happens.' Here they're not. They know what's going to happen over the next year. They know it's going to go up.”
And it's still not absurdly expensive, as Calgary has become and Vancouver remains. An average three-bedroom house in Saskatoon goes for about $320,000 and a condo for $200,000.
Another sign, for Mr. Stewart, that things can last: Young locals are trading up, moving into larger homes.
“They're in for the long haul, they're not thinking of moving at all,” Mr. Stewart said. “And their friends are thinking about moving back.”
More students are staying, too. Among graduates from the business school at the University of Saskatchewan, two-thirds remain in the province, up from half.
However, like Alberta, like any place making a leap, the problems of prosperity percolate. A shortage of skilled labour is about to become a major problem. And infrastructure – roads, schools, hospitals – is an issue.
Government in Saskatchewan, which traditionally has played a central role in the economy, is still a key actor. The NDP, which ruled for 16 years, was unseated last November by the more conservative Saskatchewan Party.
But the NDP started to make business-savvy moves this decade, cutting taxes, easing red tape and providing incentives to businesses to take risks.
And while the Sask Party looks like a move to the right from the left, it has ended up being more of a continuation of things the NDP had started. Last month, the Sask Party's first budget focused on spending necessary dollars to keep pace with the burgeoning boom.
The province billed its budget as “ready for growth,” adding $235-million of new spending on infrastructure to a base of $594-million. The budget document, like the Energy Minister this week, took a veiled but specific swipe at Alberta, which due to poor planning finds itself woefully behind in infrastructure development.
“Saskatchewan's time is now,” the budget stated. “We must ensure we have the infrastructure to support a growing economy and a growing population, so we can avoid the problems associated with rapid growth experienced in other jurisdictions where investment in infrastructure has fallen behind the pace of growth.”
For Mr. Isaac, dean at the business school at the U of S, building to further capitalize on already-good times is exactly the kind of confidence he sensed was possible in his home province when he and his wife returned from London.
The province, in choosing to spend, has decidedly stepped into the 21st century, leaving the harvest-what-you-can mentality behind. A jurisdiction that finds itself flush, Mr. Isaac said, can do one of two things:
“You can either believe that you're at the top of the cycle and it's time to harvest the results.
“Or you can believe it's possible to sustain the growth.”
Any way to have this program display local time?
I know where the money should go http://www.alzheimer.ca/
RR ready for take off!
and 11 in the next hole 80 meters away!!!!
speaking of whining lol