North America’s potash and phosphate industries

FLORIDA – WHERE IT ALL STARTED

Wetlands restoration at Nutrien’s White Springs production site in Florida.

PHOTO: NUTRIEN

Florida’s pre-eminence as a phosphate-producing region dates back to the industry’s earliest days. Phosphate rock deposits near Hawthorne in Alachua County were the first to be mined in 1883.

The discovery of exceptionally large phosphate reserves in Florida during the late 19th century came at a time when agriculture was also of increasing importance to the state’s burgeoning economy. Although phosphate mining was a primitive affair in those pioneering times, early Florida settlers were quick to recognise the agronomic benefits of phosphate, which were readily apparent when applied to the citrus trees they were planting in ever larger numbers.

Florida leads, others follow

Indeed, the presence of abundant citrus groves on its doorstep provided Florida’s nascent phosphate industry with a ready-made market. It was this near-perfect match of supply and demand in Florida that created ideal conditions for a number of crucial and landmark mining and production innovations. In the 1920s and 1930s, a growing market, and the drive for greater efficiency and lower costs, provided all the incentives necessary for the introduction of draglines and the development of flotation and other beneficiation technologies.

As process engineering improved, and agricultural knowledge also grew, Florida’s phosphate producers introduced new downstream processes, pioneered by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in the 1960s, to manufacture more concentrated phosphate fertilizers. The new high-analysis products –monoammonium phosphate (MAP) and diammonium phosphate (DAP) – were able to deliver more phosphate to farmers at a lower cost. As a consequence, ammoniated phosphates ended up displacing superphosphate as Florida’s primary fertilizer commodity. This development ultimately transformed what had been largely a mining industry in Florida into a chemicals business.

As the 20th Century progressed, Florida’s state of the art phosphate production processes offered a mining and manufacturing template which others could learn from and follow. The landmark developments pioneered in the state became standard phosphate industry practice, setting an operational benchmark for the other phosphate-producing countries which have emerged around the world subsequently.

Eventually eclipsed

For decades during the post-war period, Florida enjoyed a commanding position globally as a supplier of phosphate rock and finished phosphate products. But since the 1990s the state’s global hegemony has been increasingly challenged by the rise of other centres of phosphate production – in China, Morocco, India, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Brazil and elsewhere. Having once been a major phosphate import market, China, in particular, has transformed itself through a crash programme of industrialisation into the world’s largest producer of finished phosphates and a net exporter.

Seamless reinvention

To its credit, North America’s phosphate industry has neither stood still or been left behind. Instead, it has parlayed its world-class expertise to become the purveyor of process engineering, technology, products and services to the global phosphate industry (Fertilizer International 489, p31). North American phosphate producers such as The Mosaic Company, with acumen and foresight, have secured their competitive position and continued market access – via a programme of global acquisitions and investments, and by forging strategic partnerships internationally.