U.S. officially allows transactions with Belaruskali, Belarusian Potash Company

MOSCOW. Dec 16 (Interfax) - The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) officially published a license for transactions with Belarusian potash giant Belaruskali, its trader Belarusian Potash Company (BPC) and Agrorozkvit on Monday.

"Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this general license, all transactions [...] involving the following entities are authorized: (1) Joint Stock Company Belarusian Potash Company; (2) Agrorozkvit LLC; (3) Belaruskali OJSC; or (4) Any entity in which one or more of the above persons own, directly or indirectly, individually or in the aggregate, a 50 percent or greater interest," the license states.

Paragraph (b) of the license does not authorize the "unblocking of any property blocked" earlier.

The U.S. special envoy to Belarus, John Coale said on Saturday after talks with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk that the United States is lifting sanctions against Belarusian potash on orders from President Donald Trump.

This "is a very good step by the United States for Belarus," Coale said. "We are lifting them now."

Talks on this matter will continue and more sanctions will be lifted as relations between the two countries normalize, Coale added.

Belaruskali, the largest producer of potassium chloride in Belarus, exported 10 million-11 million tonnes of this product to 107 countries annually through BPC before being hit by Western sanctions and had more than a 20% share of the global potash fertilizer market. The company's main operations are now based at the Starobinskoye potash deposit in Minsk Region and include four mine administrations, auxiliary departments and service divisions.

The U.S. imposed sanctions against Belaruskali in August 2021. On February 1, 2022, against the backdrop of the U.S. sanctions, Lithuania terminated its contract with Belaruskali for shipping potash through the Klaipeda port, which traditionally handled virtually all of Belarus's potash exports.

After this Belarus began to export potash through Russian ports and it is also shipping mineral fertilizer to China by railway.