IPNI Announces Executive Committee and Officers of the Board

December 6, 2006—Norcross, Georgia, USA—The executive committee and officers of the Board of Directors of the recently established International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI) have been named. These responsibilities were determined in the inaugural meeting of the IPNI Board, which took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, December 3.

Mr. Patricio Contesse, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SQM, was elected Chairman of the IPNI Board. Mr. Mike Wilson, President and CEO of Agrium Inc., was elected Vice Chairman. Mr. Stephen R. Wilson, Chairman and CEO of CF Industries Holdings, Inc., will become Finance Committee Chair. All three were elected for 2-year terms and will serve as members of the IPNI Executive Committee, which also includes: Mr. Olavio Takenaka, Vice President, Procurement, of Bunge Fertilizantes S.A.; Mr. Joachim Felker, Member of the Management of K+S KALI GmbH; Mr. James Prokopanko, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Mosaic; Mr. Oleg Petrov, General Manager of Uralkali Trading SA; and Dr. Terry L. Roberts, President of IPNI.

Mr. Contesse has served as Gerente General (Chief Executive Officer) of SQM since 1990. He is a 1975 graduate of the University of Chile, School of Forestry Science. Mr. Contesse has broad experience in the fertilizer, mining, and forest products industries. SQM (Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile S.A.) was founded in 1968 to reorganize the Chilean nitrate industry and privatization was completed in 1988. Today, SQM is a worldwide leader in specialty plant nutrition as well as other business areas.

Mr. Bill Doyle, President and CEO of PotashCorp, has served as Chairman of the Potash & Phosphate Institute (PPI) Board of Directors since 2004. He announced earlier that PPI has committed its scientific staff to the new global IPNI organization, which officially begins operations January 1, 2007. Thereafter, PPI will no longer exist. IPNI will immediately have effective scientific programs in place in North America, Central and South America, China, India, and Southeast Asia. IPNI anticipates establishing programs in Western and Eastern Europe as well as in the Middle East.

IPNI is composed of fertilizer industry companies that are basic producers of nitrogen (N), and/or phosphate (P), and/or potash (K) and/or sulfur (S) for agricultural use. The purpose is to help provide a coordinated scientific foundation for fertilizer nutrient use and to scientifically address associated environmental issues.

Founding members of IPNI are: Agrium Inc.; Arab Potash Company; Belarusian Potash Company; Bunge Fertilizantes S.A.; CF Industries Holdings, Inc.; Groupe OCP; Intrepid Mining, LLC; K+S KALI GmbH; Mosaic; PotashCorp; Saskferco; Simplot; Sinochem Hong Kong Ltd.; Spur Ventures Inc.; SQM; Terra Industries Inc.; and Uralkali.


For further information contact Dr. Terry Roberts at IPNI: tel. +1.770.447.0335; e-mail: troberts@ipni.net.