The future of a potash mine planned for Kronau is uncertain now that the project has been postponed indefinitely.

Brazilian mining company Vale has postponed the three billion dollar project due to what it calls "challenging economic conditions."

The reeve of Kronau's rural municipality, Erwin Beitel says the news caught him by surprise.

"A week ago we were told that you know things were moving along at a slower pace," he commented. "They bought a lot of property and stuff on the site to do drilling to build the mine so I don't really know what's happening here."

During construction the mine would have employed 1500 people and 500 once it opened.

Beitel says the community has had a lot of commercial interest in the area because of the mine.

"We've had lots of calls for hotels, Tim Hortons to be built in Kronau, we've had for 230 unit housing units," he said.

Beitel if all of those plans will stop with this news, but if it does he doesn't expect it to be that bad.

"Sure the RMs would like to have the extra money and revenue coming in, but if it takes two or three years, you know that's not a big issue because we haven't budgeted for a big pile of money," he explained.

The mine was expected to produce 2.9 million tonnes of potash a year.

Edited by CJME's Adriana Christianson