Market glut, sanctions and technical challenges combine to slow progress and temporarily postpone milestones
Upon bringing two sites online in two years, Eurochem will account for 10% of world’s potash production, becoming one of the largest players in the global fertilizers market. In 2018, Eurochem should finally commission its Gremyachinsky GOK, in Volgograd Oblast, with a $3.3 billion price tag and a capacity of 4.6 million metric tons per year (mt/y) of potash. Additionally, Usolskiy Potash, on the Verhnekamskoe deposit of the Perm Oblast (in Russia), is scheduled for commissioning at the end of 2017. With a capacity of 3.7 million mt/y of potash, the site cost the company $1.5 billion.
Gremyachinsky is not only the largest mining project in the country for the last half-century. It was the first Russian mining and processing complex constructed entirely after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The unprecedented scale of the facility makes a number of officials and experts in Russia informally call it Russia’s Building of the Century.
