In the last two years, phosphate has become the poor relation to potash. Having been the primary fertiliser raw material for many years, attention from the world’s biggest miners and investment banks has, in the main, turned from phosphate to potash.
This is not to say the phosphate industry does not hold promise quite the opposite in fact.
Phosphate is the primary fertiliser mineral. It is far and away the most widely consumed as phosphoric acid in a number of downstream fertilisers and as a direct granular additive.
The figures speak for themselves: global production is 174.4m. tpa compared with 61.2m. tpa for potash while expansion activity is on a par with the burgeoning potash industry.
The phosphate industry is expereicing a significant lull in demand however Europe’s only miner, Yara, has taken theopportunity to improve processing at its new Finland mineupping production to 1m....