By John Helmer in Moscow In the Russian fertilizer business, the days are gone when you could make enormous profits mixing fertilizer ingredients into sacks; loading the sacks aboard ship; and earning your profit margin between the rising export price of the sack, and the government-fixed price of its constituents in the home market. Today, […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has put his signature on one of the strangest mining prospector’s pay-sheets ever drafted in the history of mining. According to the prevailingRussian law, now one year old, if a miner does not qualify as Russian, and if what he discovers is big and valuable enough, […]

by John Helmer - Friday, March 20th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow The Belarusian Potash Company (BPC), the trader for Uralkali and Belaruskali, has announced it will offer a 25% discount off the spot price of potash on the Brazilian market from $1,000/tonne to $750-$765/tonne (including cost and freight, CFR). The offer is good from this month to end-May. Brazil is one […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, March 5th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow Uralkali (ticker URKA:RU), once Russia’s fastest-rising potash miner, continues to wait nervously under the Damocles Sword of a government ruling, which may put the company, or its controlling shareholder, Dmitry Rybolovlev, out of business. Still, Moscow investor sentiment firmed last week, lifting the miner’s London and Moscow-listed share price by […]

by John Helmer - Monday, February 16th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow The Agatha Christie story of 1939 started with a title and a children’s rhyme that are no longer printable for their racist connotations. The story has ended up being called “And There Were None”. Everyone turns up dead — 9 murdered, 1 suicide. It is the biggest-selling of all Christie’s […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, February 5th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow It’s just as normal, geologically speaking, for potash mines to subside and flood, as for high-profit businesses to be taken over, if the price is a bargain, commercially speaking. Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin deserves some credit for combining the two — reviving a two-year old geological anomaly, in order […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow In the Kingdom of Russian fertilizers, there has been the Power and the Glory of hugely profitable export margins and high-flying share prices. But there is only one Will which can be done. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited Acron’s Novgorod chemicals plant last Sunday, January 25, and he appeared to […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, January 29th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow Market speculation in Moscow turned sharply negative for Uralkali, Russia’s dominant potash producer, on Wednesday this week, as the share price was slashed 8% to $1.67 on the Russian Trading System (RTS). This followed a modest drift upward in international trading of the shares, while the RTS was closed for […]

by John Helmer - Friday, January 16th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow Roman Abramovich’s holding company Millhouse has obliged two of its Russian steelmaking partners, Alexander Abramov and Alexander Frolov, to buy an indirect stake of 9.99% in Highland Gold Mining. No explanation for the move has been issued, either by Highland Gold, or by Millhouse; or by Abramov and Frolov, who […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, January 15th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow Oleg Mitvol, Russia’s well-known mining regulator and gadfly to Aim-traded stock values, has filed a half-dozen lawsuits in Moscow, challenging the terms of his removal from his functions. And he appears to have Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin on his side. The legal and political moves follow months of effort […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, January 7th, 2009
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