BHP is taking another step in its commitment to build strong, respectful and mutually beneficial relationships with Indigenous communities with the launch of the Canada Indigenous Partnership Plan (CIPP).
This approach has been central in BHP’s development of the Jansen potash mine in Saskatchewan, where it started building relationships with local Indigenous groups surrounding the site almost a decade before construction began. First production is expected in 2026.
Canadian global fertiliser giant Nutrien vowed to counter any competition from BHP with a boost to potash supply from its network of mines in response to BHP’s planned entry into crop nutrients. BHP is betting big on a growing market for potash as it prepares to take on one-time takeover target Nutrien and other fertiliser incumbents.
Nutrien is predicting steady but unspectacular growth in demand for potash, and focused on an emerging market for biological technology it believes could grow to $US13 billion ($19.9 billion) a year.
For 65 years, Nutrien has been part of the fabric of Saskatchewan. From the first 1,000 tonnes of potash produced at our Patience Lake mine and shipped in 1959 to our position today as the world’s largest potash producer, Nutrien’s legacy demonstrates our deep-rooted connection with Saskatchewan and our commitment to Feeding the Future.
Our six mines across the province have access to the best potash geology in the world highlighting our role as a critical mineral producer essential to global agricultural advancement. Potassium is a critical plant nutrient for growth and productivity, without which plant life is impossible.
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Eric Cline is a lawyer and served 12 years as a cabinet minister in Saskatchewan. His second book, Squandered: Canada’s Potash Legacy (University of Regina Press), was released this spring.
Saskatchewan owns one-third of world potash reserves. That puts the province in an enviable position. The market for potash, necessary for fertilizer production, seems assured as long as a growing world population needs to eat. And one-third is a lot. To put that in context, Saudi Arabia, with only about 16 per cent of world oil reserves, dominates the world oil market.
It’s therefore not surprising that companies extracting Saskatchewan’s potash – Nutrien, Mosaic and K+S – make a lot of money. That’s all the more so recently, when Ukraine war sanctions against the potash producers Russia and Belarus sent the price of the commodity skyrocketing.
Washington | BHP is considering nuclear energy to power what will be the world’s biggest potash mine in Saskatchewan, Canada, in a move that would help the Australian mining giant achieve its net-zero emissions target by 2050.
A decision to pursue nuclear generation in a country where it has long been part of the energy mix raises further questions about Australia’s own interest in the clean but controversial energy alternative.
BHP’s Sask. mine breaking new ground for women
In July of this year, mining giant BHP announced a company first. More than 14,000 kilometres away from its Melbourne, Australia headquarters, BHP said it had achieved its “gender balance” target for its local workforce in Saskatchewan.
With women making up more than 43 per cent of the company’s workforce at its Jansen potash mine project as well as its Saskatoon corporate office, the province became the first BHP location in the world to reach a goal set back in 2016.
BHP’s nearly $19 billion potash mine near Jansen is getting resounding approval from Lanigan mayor Tony Mycock. Lanigan, which is about a 15-minute drive from the mine site, is expected to benefit from the economic boon for the province and the local area after BHP announced plans for a $6.4 billion stage two expansion at the site Tuesday.
“It was pretty exciting,” he said. “They’ve been talking about it for a while and I didn’t expect it to happen this quick. “It’s very exciting for our community, the surrounding area and I mean, the province as a whole. This is a huge investment in Saskatchewan.”
Mike Henry discusses the rationale behind BHP’s potash investment and how it intends to compete with the world’s largest potash producer
The world’s biggest miner BHP Group Ltd. is aiming to enter Canada’s potash industry in a big way when it starts producing the commodity in 2026 in Saskatchewan. The Jansen potash project is one of its biggest capital investments and while prices of the commodity have taken a hit in recent times, the miner is confident the expenditure will be worth it in the long run.
BHP’s chief executive Mike Henry was born in Canada and studied at the University of British Columbia. He left for Australia in 1999 to work for the Melbourne-based company and gradually rose up the ranks to become head of it in 2020.
Mike Henry says political stability, abundant stores of critical minerals and talent make country a good place to invest
BHP Group Ltd. chief executive Mike Henry doesn’t shy away from trying new things. Just last week, he decided to take a leap of faith and went parachute jumping for the first time while visiting Montreal. “It was incredible,” he said.
Perhaps not so incredible, though, that the head of the world’s biggest miner will be making a hobby of it. Henry, a native of Vancouver, said he will be sticking with more relaxing pastimes to give his mind a rest from running a company with operations in more than 90 locations.
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BHP Group Ltd. CEO Mike Henry is talking down the chances of acquiring Canadian fertilizer giant Nutrien Ltd., as the world’s biggest mining company concentrates on building its own potash business instead. In 2010, the giant Australian miner attempted to buy Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, Nutrien’s predecessor company, but the deal was blocked by the federal Conservative government as not being of net benefit to Canadians.
BHP held talks with Nutrien in 2021 around a possible joint venture on its Jansen potash project in Saskatchewan. However, discussions between the two companies eventually fizzled. BHP elected instead to go it alone on the $7.5-billion project, the most expensive the company has ever undertaken.
Across Africa and in parts of Asia, disruption to the supply chain for fertilizer is raising food prices and increasing malnutrition.
Suleiman Chubado is not entirely clear what caused the price of fertilizer to more than double over the past year, but he is bitterly aware of the consequences. At his farm in northeastern Nigeria, he can no longer afford enough fertilizer, so his corn is stunted and pale, the scraggly plants bending toward the powdery earth.
Inside his mud house, he has grown accustomed to explaining to his two young children and pregnant wife why they must make do with two meals a day — and sometimes only one — even as hunger gnaws. As he and his neighbors commiserate over the calamity unfolding across much of Africa, they exchange theories on one source of trouble: Russia’s war on Ukraine, which disrupted shipments of key ingredients for fertilizer.
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Today I want to draw your attention to the other side of the commodities market — food. The soft commodities are an important but overlooked investment theme. As we head toward the pointy end of this commodity cycle, the ‘softs’ as some like to call them, could follow the same trajectory as their metal cousins.
While the demand and supply fundamentals are different, commodity-wide booms are just that — higher prices across all sectors of this market. This is what we witnessed during the last early 2000s boom.
BHP, the world’s largest miner by market valuation, is increasing its capital spending this year on the Jansen potash project in Saskatchewan by 55% even as potash prices dropped by more than a third this year.
Construction outlays at the site 180 km north of Regina are planned to rise to $1 billion from $647 million as crews work to start the mine in late 2026 instead of in 2027 as earlier planned, the company’s Calgary-based potash unit said. Jansen’s $5.7 billion stage one is 26% complete and would produce 4.4 million tonnes a year when finished, it said.
The Ukraine war thrust fertilizer minerals to the centre of the food security debate
The vital role of fertilizer minerals in food production has propelled a niche corner of the mining industry to the centre of a global debate about the security of supplies. Potash and phosphate rock surged in price after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. In June, United States lawmakers even proposed adding them to the country’s list of critical minerals in new legislation in Congress.
“Our food security is our national security, so when we’re dependent on Russian and Chinese minerals for the fertilizer that grows our crops, we are putting ourselves at risk,” said Democrat congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, one of the sponsors of the bill.
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Nutrien Ltd. is indefinitely suspending plans to ramp up its potash production, cutting its capital expenditure and reducing its profit forecast yet again, as a prolonged slump in the global fertilizer market takes its toll on the Canadian giant.
Saskatoon-based Nutrien announced late Wednesday that it is reducing its 2023 adjusted net earnings per share guidance to roughly US$4.72 a share, compared with around US$6.50 a share in May – a figure that had already been revised downward from February.
