K+S Buying Potash One

After BHP Billiton’s failure to purchase Canada’s PotashCorp, German fertilizer and salt maker K+S has reached an agreement to buy another Canadian potash firm, Potash One, for $425 million. Potash One has no operations, but it is developing the Legacy One project in Saskatchewan. Although the project has received government approvals, Potash One needs an estimated $2.5 billion of capital investment. When Legacy One is completed “no earlier than 2015,” K+S says, the project will have an estimated potassium chloride capacity of 2.7 million metric tons per year. K+S purchased Dow Chemical’s Morton Salt business last year for $1.7 billion.