Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan has become one of the Canadian companies to watch, thanks to its zooming share price - up 150 per cent over the past 12 months, despite a few jitters recently - and the world's focus on agriculture. But is there room ahead for more gains?

Analyst Fai Lee at RBC Dominion Securities, thinks so. He raised his recommendation on the stock to "top pick" from "outperform" and jacked up his 12-month price target to $250 (U.S.) from $195. The shares closed at $150.80 on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, up 4.53 per cent, and at $154.01 (Canadian) on the Toronto Stock Exchange, up $6.44 or 4.36 per cent. The new target implies a hefty gain of more than 60 per cent from the current price, and comes mainly from a revision to the price of potash.

Mr. Lee believes potash will fetch $495 a tonne in 2009, after taking freight charges into account for various regions in the world. That's up from an earlier estimate of $350 a tonne, with most of the increase due to rising prices in China and India.

"We believe our financial forecast for Potash Corp. is based on conservative fertilizer pricing assumptions, particularly with respect to the potash and phosphate businesses," Mr. Lee said in a note to clients.

"With respect to potash, we've assumed potash prices outside of China remain relatively stable through 2009...", even though market conditions should remain tight in the period, with limited new potash capacity additions."

Read David Berman's Market Blog at ReportonBusiness.com