England 1. Australia 0. The other (Pot) ashes

With the five test Ashes cricket series starting later today (Friday) at Edgbaston in Birmingham it's a fair bet that potash will not be widely discussed, with the possible exception of the grounds staff who might have a chat about whether the outfield needs a sprinkling of the fertiliser to green it up.Meanwhile, about 290 kilometres to the north-east, at England's great potash hopeful, the Woodsmith mine of Anglo American, workers busy digging a complex of tunnels needed to transport deeply buried potash via underground conveyors to a processing facility near Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast.Sometime in the next few years Woodsmith, a project acquired from the troubled Sirius Minerals, might join its smaller potash cousin, the nearby Boulby mine run by a subsidiary of Israel Chemical Industries.It's a different potash story in Australia where the business of producing potassium-rich fertiliser is proving much tougher than anyone had imagined five years ago.Back then a flotilla of potash hopefuls were floated but all have been struggling with technical problems, cost blow-out, and now a collapse in the potash price which will also be worrying Anglo American and another big potential Australian-based potash player, BHP.Just one projectFrom eight starters there is only one project of substance left in the Australian potash race, the Mardie salt and potash development of BCI Minerals, a company backed by local media and heavy equipment billionaire Kerry Stokes, and one of the country's biggest pension funds, AustralianSuper.Having shareholders with deep pockets is handy but even after they last month injected a fresh A$60 million to plug a hole caused by cost overruns and construction delays more capital will be required to finish the job at Mardie where a review of design and technical issues is nearing completion.The last thing management at BCI, or any of the other potash developers needed to hear, is that the price of the fertiliser has crashed, but that's what happened earlier this month when Canada's international potash marketing business, Canpotex signed a cut-price sales deal for the rest of the year with China's buying committee. The price of US$307/t for potassium chloride is 48% lower than the price of $590/t agreed in the last contract negotiated 12-months ago and will last until the end 2023 causing Nutrien, Canada's biggest potash producer, to say that it might slow expansion plans.Germany's potash leader, K+S issued a profit warning after the Canadian sales deal with China was announced, telling investors that "in the past the China potash contract has usually set a floor for the international potash price", adding that the existence of a floor price has led to a price recovery later.Anglo ok, Aussies probably notAnglo American with its Woodsmith project and BHP with its Jansen project in Canada will be unaffected by the sale of discounted potash to China because both are still several years away from starting production and have the balance sheet strength to ride out choppy markets.It's a different story for the small Australian potash players which have been hammered by technical and construction problems that have devastated their shares with a potash price collapse compounding their problems.Earlier this week Australian Potash, which is developing a project at Lake Wells, 500km north-east of the goldmining centre of Kalgoorlie, paused all potash activity and started looking for something else to do as it "works towards restoration of shareholder value".Unsurprisingly Australian Potash, which has suspended trading in its shares, said it was looking at the possibility of finding rare earth elements in the clay-rich paleochannels at Lake Wells, along with the potential for gold and lithium on the company's extensive tenement holdings.Other small potash hopefuls to encounter similar problems as Australian Potash include Salt Lake Potash, which collapsed last year, and Kalium Lakes which asked for trading in its shares to be suspended earlier this month even as it continues to produce potash at its Beyondie project east of the BHP iron ore mining centre of Newman.All of the Australian potash stocks have suffered from the classic Australian problems of high costs associated with remote locations. The Canadian cut-price sale of potash to China has compounded the challenge from which it will be hard to recover.Potash score: England 1. Australia 0.

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