The shafts are now about 600 meters (1,970 feet) deep with another 300 to 400 meters to go, chief executive officer Andrew Mackenzie told analysts and investors in London on Tuesday.
When that’s done by 2018 or 2019, the board will decide whether to build the mine, he said.
“It’s certainly perfectly possible, if at that time the market is not going to be ready for potash, say, in three years subsequently, that we could mothball the shafts once we’ve completed them,” Mackenzie said.
BHP of Australia made a bid to buy Saskatchewan Potash Corp., but on the urging of the Saskatchewan government, the federal government nixed the deal.
Then BHP said it would go ahead to build its own mine. It also indicated it will probably not join the Canadian export cartel which has Saskatchewan Potash Corp., Agrium and Mosaic working together to set prices.
World potash prices dropped sharply when a similar cartel b between Belarus and Russia broke down and they each started cutting prices to maintain sales.
