Tag: Mosaic

A summary of recent company appointments.

We profile North America's phosphate and potash industries – focusing in on Florida and Saskatchewan, those two centres of P&K excellence.

The Mosaic Company has announced the sale of its Patos de Minas phosphate mine to Fosfatados Centro SPE Ltda.

California-based biologicals company BioConsortia is launching the nitrogen-fixing product Always N for 2025 season sales in New Zealand with its partner Mosaic. The product, which is based on robust, spore-forming, gram-positive microbes (Paenibacillus ) fixes atmospheric nitrogen throughout the growing season by colonising the roots of corn, wheat and potatoes, as well as fruits and vegetables. Always N delivers consistent yield gains and is backed by data from more than 300 trials in Brazil, New Zealand, the US and Europe. Fertilizer International spoke with Marcus Meadows-Smith, the company’s CEO, ahead of the Fertilizer Latino Americano 2025 conference.

In October, ammonia benchmarks were more or less stable across the board. West of Suez, supply from Algeria was constrained by an ongoing turnaround at one of domestic player Sorfert’s production units. Still, demand from NW Europe remained quiet, although CF was set to receive a 15,000 tonne spot cargo from Hexagon some time in November, reportedly sourced somewhere in the region of $530/t f.o.b. Turkey. While regional supply appeared tight, steadily improving output from Trinidad and the US Gulf could alleviate recent pressures, with many players of the opinion that Yara and Mosaic could agree a $560/t c.fr rollover for November at Tampa as a result.

OCP Group has launched what it calls the Mzinda-Meskala Strategic Programme, aimed at significantly expanding fertilizer production in the country. Initially announced in December 2022, the program is set to enhance production capacity in two key regions: the Mzinda-Safi Corridor and the Meskala-Essaouira Corridor. This initiative is part of OCP’s broader strategy to meet growing global demand for fertilizers while committing to long-term sustainability goals, including achieving carbon neutrality by 2040.

CRU’s 2025 Phosphates Conference – now in its 16th year – will be held in Orlando, Florida, 31 March - 2 April next year. The 2024 event convened in Warsaw was one of the most successful to date (Fertilizer International 519, p4).

Market snapshot, 17th October 2024 Urea : Prices firmed in a thin market in mid-October. Middle East values shot up $20/t on expectations that Indian Potash Limited (IPL) would announce another tender to secure tonnes for India in December. If correct, this will follow hot on the heels of the latest Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers (RCF) purchase tender for 0.56 million tonnes of urea. Sohar International Urea & Chemical Industries (SIUCI) sold a November cargo at $390/t f.o.b. with further trader interest reported at $385/t f.o.b. This demand was probably generated by traders positioning themselves for IPL’s expected tender, given that other markets generally remained quiet.

QatarEnergy has announced the construction of a new world-scale ammonia-urea production complex at Mesaieed Industrial City in Qatar.

Sophisticated control of phosphates production is now possible thanks to the availability of real-time process analysers. The emergence of laboratory robots is also improving process efficiency and delivering cost savings.