By Farhad Abasov, Chairman, Millennial Potash
In February 2026, Brazil’s granular MOP market was trading between US$365 and US$395 per tonne CFR, as buyers evaluated delivered cost into Mato Grosso, one of Brazil’s largest agricultural producing regions, ahead of second-crop corn applications. At those levels, even modest movements in ocean freight had a meaningful impact on netback calculations.
Meanwhile, India had settled annual contracts at mid-US$340s per tonne while U.S. midwest spring tender programs were making between $380 and $420 per short ton FOB, dependent on timing and inventory positions.
This, in essence, is the potash market in 2026 – price-sensitive, freight-conscious, and dominated by delivered economics, rather than focusing on price volatility.
Global supply remains concentrated in Canada, Russia, and Belarus. Brazil continues to import approximately 12 to 13 million tonnes annually. China and India remain structurally import dependent. Buyers are no longer simply securing tonnes. They are managing exposure to freight, geopolitics, and cost curve resilience.
It is within this setting that the Banio Potash Project in Gabon advances to full feasibility. The project is located in the West African Coastal Basin, an evaporite basin running from the Congo Republic northwards into southern Gabon and covers an area of some 1,238 square kilometres on its margin.
Drilling at the North Target has confirmed multiple evaporite cycles hosting carnallitite and sylvinite mineralization suitable for large-scale solution mining.
Following the latest mineral resource estimate update, Banio has 648 million tonnes of measured resources with 15.7 per cent KCl, 1.804 billion tonnes of indicated resources with 15.6 per cent KCl, making a total of 2.45 billion tonnes of measured and indicated resources. There are also 3.56 billion tonnes of resources classified as inferred.
These figures are derived from drilling across only a small portion of the total license area, and mineralization remains open laterally to the north and south of the current drilling area.
Thickness and continuity are the decisive factors in solution mining economics. Recent drilling has confirmed cumulative carnallitite intervals exceeding 100 metres in several holes supporting cavern design and long-term extraction planning.
In solution mining, geometry drives economics. Banio’s evaporite profile provides the scale required for sustained production from thick flat lying potash seams.
Millennial Potash began its AACE Class 3 Definitive Feasibility Study in January 2026 and has retained the services of ERCOSPLAN, a global specialist company with extensive potash engineering experience in both solution and conventional mining environments.
The DFS will evaluate a base-case 800,000 tonne per year MOP operation while examining higher production scenarios and associated technical trade-offs, including dissolution behaviour, hydrogeology, creep characteristics, and evaporation parameters. The study is advancing in parallel with the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment in preparation for a Mining License application.
The earlier Preliminary Economic Assessment outlined life-of-mine operating costs of approximately US$61 per tonne and initial capital expenditure of US$480 million for an 800,000 tonne per year development scenario. While the definitive feasibility study will refine these parameters, the project’s cost structure positions Banio toward the lower end of the global cost curve. In a pricing environment where Brazil CFR trades around US$380 per tonne, cost discipline is the primary safeguard against cyclical compression.
Infrastructure progress has materially reduced development risk.
Banio benefits from direct Atlantic access. Development planning includes a brine pipeline from the wellfield to a coastal processing facility near the port town of Mayumba. Port facilities are progressing in phases, with the construction of the quay being completed and extended to ensure accommodation of ocean-going vessels. Within the power sector, thermal plants fired by natural gas are already operational and progressing towards the 50 MW mark, complete with the construction of a natural gas pipeline. Reliable power supply is critical in the operation of thermal evaporators in the solution mining process, and the availability of natural gas feeds improves the outlook for operations.
The cost of the freight to Brazil is estimated at around $22 per tonne. The cost of the freight acts as a factor of competitiveness for a country’s import of more than 12 million tonnes per year. The reduced distance of the sailing routes decreases the sensitivity of the routes to the volatility of fuel prices and the availability of vessels. The economics of the delivered product, and not the cost of the mine site, are what build long-term positions in the Atlantic Basin.
Global potash trade in 2026 will likely still lie in its usual stable range of between 70 to 75m tonnes. Factors such as nutrient depletion in agricultural land, further enhancement in crop yields, as well as potash crop requirements itself, will still be major demand drivers. Looking at it from a consumption perspective, too many sources of potash are located in geopolitically sensitive regions, and diversification is therefore becoming critical.
In such an environment, buyers are increasingly assessing projects based on factors such as cost curves’ resilience, freight’s efficiency, jurisdiction’s stability, and supplies’ reliability.
Significantly, participation of development finance from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, which has committed up to US$3 million in non-dilutive funding for the advancement of the feasibility of the project at Banio, is noteworthy. Millennial Potash is the only mining exploration company within Gabon to be supported by DFC project-level funding, a factor that speaks well for the policy emphasis placed on fertilizers within food security paradigms.
Gabon has positioned mining as a diversification priority. Its Atlantic coastline and improving infrastructure base provide support for the development of export-oriented mineral projects, while the Mining Code 2019 has set fiscal and regulatory structures that are clear for investment with long-term perspectives.
No new potash project advances lightly. Geological continuity, disciplined engineering, infrastructure readiness and cost structure determine survivability during downturns.
Global potash supply has for a long time been dominated by only a few jurisdictions, and that structure has worked out to be efficient but concentrated.
Banio introduces an additional Atlantic supply node. It combines basin-scale evaporite geology, solution mining economics, freight advantage into Brazil and North America, and advancing feasibility work supported by infrastructure development.
In a 2026 market defined by disciplined procurement and tighter risk management, only projects that can compete on delivered cost across price cycles will move forward.
Banio is being engineered to compete on that basis.
Farhad Abasov is the chairman of Millennial Potash, the company advancing the Banio Potash Project in Gabon in West Central Africa. Abasov is a veteran mining executive who has built and sold multiple resource companies including potash and lithium companies.
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