Russian fertilizer maker EuroChem is no longer looking for a strategic foreign partner for its Verkhnekamsk potassium salt deposits and is looking at various funding options, including an IPO, to develop them alone.
Germany's K+S had been seen as a possible partner for the project, whose two deposits together hold around 1.1 billion tons of sylvinite and 500 million tons of carnallite, according to Kommersant daily.
"At this stage we are ready to develop the deposit ourselves. We estimate the investments into this project at around 40 billion roubles ($1.33 billion)," EuroChem spokesman Vladimir Torin told Reuters on Friday.
"We are considering all options (to fund the project), including an IPO, bonds, the use of own funds and the sale of shares in K+S, depending on market situation."
He added that EuroChem sees its holding in the German potash and salts producer K+S as a portfolio investment and that any sale would depend on market conditions.
EuroChem owns around 10% of K+S, and Eurochem's shareholders hold a further 5%, Torin said.
EuroChem, already among the world's top 10 nitrogen and phosphorus miners, plans to begin production at the deposits in the Perm region by 2013 as part of its drive to produce 4.6 million tons of crop nutrient potash by 2016.
The company, controlled by billionaire Andrey Melnichenko, said last year it planned to hold an initial public offering within five years, and before that would finance its development through borrowings.
Potash has become a hot commodity in 2010, with bid activity among companies mining the fertilizer making headlines across the world, especially Australia-based BHP Billiton's giant $39 billion bid for Canada's Potash Corp.
