Mississippi Phosphates Corp. (MPC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Phosphate Holdings Inc., said Jan. 30 that it plans to add MAP to its product line, beginning in mid-February 2014. MPC has long produced DAP and sold it through traditional domestic and international channels. The company said the addition of MAP to its portfolio will allow it to take advantage of broader market opportunities. MAP is currently trading about $20/st higher at NOLA than DAP.
MPC said by broadening its product mix, it will combine internal marketing efforts with an exclusive off-take agreement for MAP with Interoceanic Corp. (IOC), of Ossining, N.Y., in an effort to enhance its targeting of value-added market sectors. It said IOC’s proven market success in the industry will be in direct support of MPC’s new market strategy.
After MPC left PhosChem in 2006, Trammo took over the exports of MPC’s DAP (GM Oct. 16, 2006, p. 11). Sources indicated that Trammo will continue to supply MPC with ammonia and have an ammonia terminaling agreement at MPC’s Pascagoula facility.
While MPC did not respond to inquiries, market sources said they were told by MPC that it was essentially switching to MAP from DAP and they believed it is MPC’s goal to produce as much MAP as possible, with little, if any, DAP to sell.
MPC has traditionally sold more DAP into the export market than the domestic, with this reflected even more so in fourth-quarter 2013. MPC sold 147,315 st of DAP, with 119,732 st exported, and only 27,583 st going to the domestic market. For the year-ago quarter, MPC sold 179,014 st with 93,516 st export and 85,498 st domestic.
For the year 2013, MPC sold 617,868 st, with 362,036 st export and 255,832 st domestic. In 2012, MPC sold 685,641 st, with 351,231 export and 270,054 st domestic.
MPC has struggled in recent years with maintenance woes and had a net loss of $808,000 on sales of $352.3 million in 2011, the last year financial data was made publically available. Phosphate Holdings, the parent, has stopped releasing detailed financial data and making analyst calls, indicating that the company is reviewing its strategic options (GM April 23, 2012, p. 13).
As reported last year (GM Oct. 14, p. 13), MPC is behind in its tax payments to Jackson County, Miss., and as of December, the local Sun Herald reported that the company still owed $798,000 in back taxes and penalties. The Jackson County Tax Collector told Green Markets last week that he wasn’t sure where MPC stood on its back taxes as the matter had been turned over to a collection agency, but that they were expected to pay $100,000 per month toward them. He did indicate that they are paying their current taxes, saying “they are paying some big amounts on current real property as of today (Jan. 30), which we handle.”