Uralkali JSC Board of Directors Approved 2010-2012 Investment Programme

22.12.2009 — News

THE PERM KRAI. On 21 December 2009 the Meeting of the Board of Directors of Uralkali JSC has approved the company’s 2010-2012 investment programme. The average annual investment amount during this period will reach about 12.5 billion roubles (not counting investments into the implementation of the Ust-Yayva area development project and investments into social sphere facilities). The company informed RusBusinessNews that an annual average of about 6.7 billion roubles out of this money is planned to be used for the expansion of capacities, and about 5.8 billion – into their maintenance.

It was estimated before that the company’s average annual investment volume in 2010-2012 would amount to 11.4 billion roubles. So, according to the new programme the annual average investment volume will be increased by about a billion roubles – roughly 500 million roubles into the expansion and 500 into into the maintenance of the capacities.

The growth of investments into the expansion of the company’s capacities is connected to the implementation of the project for building up the capacities at Mine № 4 within which decisions have been made to restore and replace some elements of the infrastructure that have been operated for about 20 years, in order to enhance their reliability. These facilities include, amongst others, the main ventilation plant, main conveyor lines, electric power grids, and additional waste storage areas.

The increase of investments into maintaining the capacities is connected to the fact that the company made a decision to implement, at a time of partial capacity utilization, the three-year programme for large process equipment replacement (concentrators and furnaces) which have been operated for about 30 years.