The UK’s July imports of MOP dropped 96% year on year to just 440 mt, though arrivals in the first seven months of 2017 still more than tripled to a record-high 304,586 mt from 98,324 mt in the same period of 2016, according to IHS GTA. The January-July volume from Spain-based ICL Iberia shot up to 85,901 mt from just 69 mt previously. ICL UK has been phasing out production of MOP at its Boulby mine in North Yorkshire in favour of ramping up its output of polyhalite, with MOP reserves expected to be exhausted by 2019. In addition, ICL experienced an MOP production outage at Boulby from December 2016. These issues were resolved by the end of Q2 2017, ICL said in its Q1 financial press release May 10.
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