Business segments

Business Segments

Fertilizer and plant care business sector

Our fertilizer and plant care business sector comprises the Potash and Magnesium Products, COMPO and fertiva business segments. K+S offers its customers the important plant nutrients nitrogen, potassium, magnesium, sulphur and trace nutrients from a single source, all within a needs-based, specialised range of products. It is only through the selective application of these nutrients that it is at all possible to cover the rapidly growing global demand for agricultural products. The agricultural markets are characterised by strong demand for food and feed as well as for renewable raw materials with simultaneously low global stocks. This is leading to an intensified cultivation of land and thus to further increases in the consumption of fertilizers.

Potash and Magnesium Products – a classic

The Potash and Magnesium Products business segment extracts potash and magnesium crude salts at six mines in Germany, with an annual output amounting to about 8 million tonnes of products. We then process the vital minerals contained in our natural raw materials – minerals such as potassium, magnesium and sulphur – to produce high-grade mineral fertilizers as well as intermediate products for the manufacture of industrial products. Our potash and magnesium fertilizers are used by farmers throughout the world to produce food more efficiently. In this way, we make an indispensable contribution to securing the world’s supply of food and improving its quality. On the basis of a unique mix of raw materials, the business segment provides a range of products via K+S KALI GmbH, more diverse than that offered by any other fertilizer producer in the world.

COMPO

In the consumer area, the COMPO business segment offers its customers a wide variety of high-quality potting soils, speciality fertilizers and plant protection products. Measured in terms of revenues, with its consumer products COMPO is the leading provider in continental Europe, holding a share of 20 %. In the four segments potting soil, plant care, lawn fertilizers and garden fertilizers, we are well ahead of all our competitors. In the plant protection segment, COMPO is advancing its further growth, for example through the cooperation with Syngenta. In the professional area too – i. e. agricultural and horticultural applications – the COMPO business segment is the innovative and driving force in Europe and occupies a leading position in the area of nitrogen-based speciality fertilizers.

fertiva

The fertiva business segment pools the K+S Group’s worldwide marketing and distribution activities relating to nitrogenous agricultural fertilizers. In addition to light, water, air and nutrients such as potassium, phosphate, and magnesium, nitrogen, also referred to as the “motor of plant growth”, is indispensable for healthy plant growth; fertiva is one of Europe’s major suppliers of nitrogenous fertilizers. In addition to the agricultural fertilizers produced exclusively for fertiva by BASF, to a limited extent, fertiva trades in the products of other reputable European fertilizer producers.

Salt Business Segment

Salt is an omnipresent element of our lives. It aids our health, is used for seasoning, dyeing and disinfecting and serves many other purposes. It is indispensable for ensuring road safety and is an important component in the production of glass, paper and synthetic materials. In a word: we cannot imagine life without salt.

esco - european salt company

esco – european salt company is the largest supplier of salt in Europe. esco operates three rock salt mines, three brine plants as well as several evaporated salt facilities. Our rock salt deposits were formed in the Upper Permian Zechstein period more than 230 m years ago. With up to 99 %, the purity of the salt that we extract underground is very high and occupies a leading position among the competition in Europe. The production capacity of esco is about 8.6 m tonnes of crystallized salt per year. esco wishes to boost and selectively expand its strong market position in Europe. We are therefore building on our customer-oriented assortment, our product quality and our supplier flexibility. Particularly in the areas of water softening, pharmaceutical salts and the electrolysis business, we see positive potential for development.

Sociedad Punta de Lobos

Our Chilean subsidiary Sociedad Punta de Lobos extracts rock salt through cost-effective open-cast mining in the Salar Grande of the Tarapacá desert. The excellent quality of the crude salt allows it to be processed into speciality products for numerous application areas. The salt reserves in these deposits are sufficient to supply the world’s population with salt for the next 200 years. At present, the production capacity amounts to 6 million tonnes per annum. In 2006, we started to expand our port facility in Puerto Patillos, which is located logistically favourably close to the open-cast mine, to a loading capacity of about 10 million tonnes. In addition to this, our subsidiary Salina Diamante Branco operates a sea salt facility with annual capacity of 450,000 tonnes in the north-eastern part of Brazil.

Complementary Business Segments

Waste Management and Recycling

The Waste Management and Recycling business segment uses the underground caverns created as a result of the extraction of crude salts for the long-range safe disposal of waste and for waste recycling while employing the available infrastructure of active potash and salt mines. We offer long-lasting solutions that meet market needs using the latest in waste management and recycling systems. The Waste Management and Recycling business segment is the technological leader in Europe for the provision of underground waste management ensuring the safe disposal of contaminated waste over long periods of time. We set standards when it comes to environmental norms and safe disposal.

Logistics

The K+S Group shipped almost 40 million tonnes of goods last year. The focus of K+S logistics is on constantly optimising logistics chains from production to customers and the best possible exploitation of the potential for synergies within the K+S Group; taken together, both these elements often yield significant savings on logistics costs. Our main logistics department coordinates the networking of the supply chain units of all business segments. The Group possesses a competent logistics service provider of its own through Kali-Transport Gesellschaft mbH (KTG), Hamburg, and its subsidiaries. The operation of the "Kalikai" in Hamburg, one of Europe’s largest transshipment facilities for exports of bulk goods, is KTG’s core business and of strategic importance for the Potash and Magnesium Products business segment at the same time. In January 2008, we completed the expansion of our transshipment capacities at the "Kalikai".

Animal Hygiene

At our Salzdetfurth location, an exemplary way has been found of successfully continuing to use existing plants and extensive sections of the infrastructure of a disused potash plant and of creating jobs. We use the site to granulate the animal hygiene product CATSAN® for Mars GmbH. In 2007, we started the expansion of the production and logistics capacities, so we will be able to create a broader range of products for the European market in the future.

Trading business

Our subsidiary Chemische Fabrik (CFK) trades in various basic chemicals. They include calcium chloride, sodium carbonate (soda), caustic soda and sodium sulphate. CFK’s customers include well-know European chemical companies, glass manufacturers, metal processing businesses as well as local authorities, which use calcium chloride solution for prewetted salt application by winter road maintenance services.

Websites of our subsidiaries:

Publications

Half-yearly Financial Report
Online | pdf document

Financial Report
Online | pdf document