K+S AG on Dec. 19 said it has acquired a 30% stake in Al-Biariq for Fertilizer Plant Co. Ltd., a fertilizer producer in Saudi Arabia.

The German company will pay between US$7 million and US$9 million for the stake, Reuters reported the same day.

K+S also secured an option to acquire a further 30% interest in Al-Biariq within two years of completing the deal, which is set to close in the second quarter of 2017.

Al-Biariq's soluble potassium sulfate production facilities on the Red Sea have an annual capacity of 20,000 tonnes and are set to double to 40,000 tonnes in the near future.

In late November, a fire broke out at the Hattorf site of K+S' Werra operation in Germany during the resumption of operations, causing damage to the process control system power supply. Repairs were expected to take three to four weeks to complete.