Uralkali’s Board of Directors has today approved the company’s investment programme for 2010-2012. The average investment level for the period will amount to approximately 12.5 billion roubles annually (exclusive of the investment into the development of the Ust-Yaivinsky field and social investments). Of these funds, about 6.7 billion roubles is earmarked for capacity expansion, and nearly 5.8 billion roubles – for capacity maintenance.

The company had previously expected to make average annual investment of 11.4 billion roubles between 2010 and 2012. The new programme will therefore increase the average annual investment level by approximately 1 billion roubles, of which about 500 million roubles will be allocated yearly to capacity expansion and approximately the same amount to capacity maintenance.

Uralkali is increasing investment in capacity expansion as a result of the expansion of Mine 4 where it is reconstructing and replacing infrastructure that has been in use for about 20 years, in order to ensure its reliability. This infrastructure includes the main ventilation system, the main trunk conveyors, power supply networks, and additional sites for waste storage.

The increase in the investment into capacity maintenance is in line with the company’s decision to use the time of reduced capacity utilization for implementing the planned 3-year programme to replace large processing equipment (such as thickeners and furnaces) which has been in use for about 30 years.