Last year, the Sowa Town-based producer lost two key supply contracts in the DRC, while cheaper imports from US giants squeezed its happy hunting grounds in South Africa. Despite market loss, Botash kept production up to maintain unit costs and was subsequently forced to rent warehouses and export to far off markets such as India.This week, executives told BusinessWeek that the last financial year, which ended on August 31, had been characterised by high pressure on sales and production.
"Last year, we were below budget (sales targets) and were forced to export "deep sea," the mine's marketing manager Tumelo Molefhe told BusinessWeek."Demand used to outstrip supply, but the impact of the global recession, combined with production boosts from maintenance and plant uptime reversed this last year. The deep sea exports were not profitable but they allowed us to keep running the plant. We ended up renting warehouses before sending product to offshore markets and this is something that we did not know we would end up having to do."
