Bethune Saskatchewan - A stoppage at K+S's new Bethune mine will weigh on the German potash miner's second-quarter earnings, and product quality needs to be improved, its chief operating officer said in a newspaper interview, pushing its shares lower on Tuesday.
 
The outage of nearly four days was due to repair works at a defective boiler stack at the Bethune potash processing site and added to delays due to strikes by Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) workers.
 
The railway operator, which moves potash fertilizer from Bethune to the port of Vancouver, reached a tentative agreement over employment terms with a labor union, ending the strike on 30 May 2018.
 
"This will burden our operating result in the second quarter," Mark Roberts told German daily Handelsblatt.
 
The comments come just over a month after K+S Chief Executive Burkhard Lohr told analysts that the group was "very happy" with the development at Bethune.
 
A spokesman declined to comment further on the earnings forecast.
 
He added trains moved by Canadian Pacific had been below agreed amounts for technical reasons unrelated to the strike.
 
Still, the company expects the Bethune mine to make a positive contribution to its annual earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization, Roberts told Handelsblatt.
 
Caroline Copley, Ludwig Burger, and Maria Sheahan.

OKthePK Joint Bar Editor:  Article abridged.