World’s largest miner BHP Billiton, the company behind the massive $2.6 billion Jansen potash project in Canada’s Saskatchewan province, may place it in the back burner if prices for the fertilizer ingredient don’t pick up by the end of the decade.
The company, which posted Tuesday its worst-ever annual loss, had already cut $130 million from the planned $330 million capital expenditure to determine the feasibility of the Jansen project in the current financial year. And while BHP continues looking for a partner to finally take the venture off the ground, it now admits that the ongoing slump in potash prices may make it mothball the project.