let the games begin - vale to spend $15b

AGR has started on the 4 holes - JORC resource early next year. AGR project adjacent to the only potash mine in Brazil (Sergipe Basin) owned by Vale - Vale going to spend $15b on Potash. We should see a dramatic improvement in SP in the next 3 to 6 months. I would say that once the resource has been confirmed Vale would have to look closely at AGR.

Pls read the article below:

Vale To Spend $15 Billion On Fertilizers Output
By Diana Kinch
Published September 27, 2011
| Dow Jones Newswires
--Vale plans to be fifth biggest potash producer by 2020
--Vale studying new Salar de Antofala project in Patagonia
--Vale director foresees fertilizer imports will continue in Brazil
--Vale discussing with Petrobras possibility of Carnalita potash project go-ahead
(Updates with discussions with Petrobras on Sergipe project, new Salar de Antofala project in Argentina.)
BELO HORIZONTE, Brazil -(Dow Jones)- Brazilian miner Vale SA (VALE5.BR, VALE) plans to invest $15 billion by 2020 to diversify its production assets and become one of the world's biggest potash and phosphate rock producers, a company director said Tuesday.
The investment will allow Vale to jump to fifth biggest producer of potash worldwide, from 14th at present, while in phosphate rock it should become the world's second biggest, Marcelo Fenelon, operations director of Vale's fertilizers unit Vale Fertilizantes said at the Brazilian Mining Congress in Minas Gerais, southeast Brazil.
"From the financing point of view the projects are confirmed," Fenelon said on the sidelines of the event. However, there are other elements including environmental permitting which makes it difficult to predict the startup date of some projects, he said.
Vale is currently Brazil's sole potash producer, with 750,000 metric tons a year capacity at the Taquari Vassouras mine in Sergipe state, northeast Brazil, which has a $174 per ton operating cost and an productive life of just nine years. The company also has a wide portfolio of new projects will should allow it meet its production goals, Fenelon said.
The biggest project is Carnalita, also in Sergipe state, which could produce 1.2 million tons a year of potash. However, this project is under discussion with Brazilian oil producer Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PETR4.BR, PBR), or Petrobras, as it is located on land belonging to Petrobras which has also discovered oil there, Fenelon said.
"Negotiations with Petrobras are going well but there's no date set for completion of the talks," Fenelon told reporters. "We need to discover if the potash project and the oil project can co-exist," he said.
Petrobras's headquarters in Rio de Janeiro had no immediate comment on the Sergipe project talks.
Other new projects in Vale's fertilizers portfolio are the Evate phosphate rock project in Mozambique, with 3.5 million tons a year capacity due to start production in 2017, the Rio Colorado potash project in Argentina, which will start in 2015 and have a 70 years productive life, and a new project at Salar de Antofala, also in Argentina, the Vale Fertilizantes director said.
This year Vale will produce 625,000 tons of potash, slightly lower than target and capacity due to technical problems, according to Fenelon. Phosphate rock output will meanwhile reach 7.6 million tons, including from the company's newly-started Bayovar mine in Peru and sites in Brazil.
Vale is investing in agricultural inputs to diversify its assets in a strategy that became particularly important since the crisis of 2009, Fenelon said. Vale Fertilizantes was consolidated in 2010, he said. Brazil is aiming to achieve self-sufficiency in fertilizers but space will be left for imports he said.