Australian Potash (ASX: APC) shares are down 36% on the event of a suspension of the shares. No particular or full reason has been given for the suspension but it's possible to have a guess. The announcement, then the reason given: “The trading halt is requested pending the release by the federal Department of Climate Change, Energy,
the Environment and Water of a correcting statement. “ Now, of course, we don't know just as no one else does, what that correcting statement is going to be. But we'd assume that it's something to do with licences and permissions. And given that a trading halt is requested while we wait for that we'd expect that it's not good news. Thus the 36% decline.
However, it is possible to take a rather larger lesson from this. Australian Potash is, well, it's a potash miner in Australia. Potash being, along with phosphorous, the vital ingredient in industrial fertilizers. Of the 8 billion people on the planet a good half, if no more, would die of starvation if we were to run out of either or both. One part of the Green argument - and supporting all that talk about organic farming and so on - is that we are about to run out. Limits to Growth and all that, repeated reports about mineral availability, tell us that we're 30 or 50 years from that disaster.
Australian Potash share price from ASX
So, a company developing a potash mine - that thing we're going to run out of and then billions die - must be really valuable, right? Except Australian Potash is worth around $12 million. And that's in AUD, not real USD ones. As with Sirius Minerals in Yorkshire, that went bust trying to develop a polyhalite (a different but closely linked mineral) mine. If we are about to run out then the mineral and mines of it will be really valuable. The mines and the minerals are not - therefore we're not about to run out.
Prices don't lie - minerals for fertilisers are not in short supply because they're low priced. Therefore we're not about to run out, are we?