Russian potash producer Uralkali PJSC is expecting to see a recovery in its potash output in the second half of this year, Uralchem Board Chairman Dmitry Tatyanin said in an interview with Russian news agency Tass at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 14-17.
“The decline in Uralkali’s potash production happened in the first quarter. We expect further steady growth, with volumes returning to capacity levels in the second half of this year,” Tatyanin said, according to the report.
Uralkali’s current potash production capacity is unclear, but according to its website, the company produced 12.3 million mt of KCl in 2021. Russia’s first-quarter potash production in 2023 fell 31% year-over-year, to 1.7 million mt of active ingredient, according to an Interfax report in April, citing the country’s Federal State Statistics Service, Rosstat (GM April 28, p. 31).
Russian company EuroChem Group AG also produces potash, cranking out 2.39 million mt of potassium chloride in 2021 at its Usolskiy Potash operation, south of Berezniki (GM Sept. 8, 2022) and 427,000 mt of potassium chloride at its VolgaKaliy operation in Russia’s southern Volgograd region in 2022, according to company data (GM April 7, p. 26). EuroChem has not published full operational results since 2021.
Meanwhile, Uralchem expects its own nitrogen fertilizer sales this year will enable the company to maintain a 100% production capacity load, according to Tatyanin. He noted, however, that the situation with ammonia will change in 2024 following the launch of the company’s terminal in the Russian Black Sea/Azov Sea port of Taman.
Uralchem last month reaffirmed its plans to commission the new terminal in late 2023 (GM May 26, p. 32). A first stage rated for freight turnover of up to 2 million mt/y of ammonia will be put into operation in late 2023, according to the company. Under a second stage of development, currently scheduled for completion by the end of 2025, the terminal’s transshipment capacity is targeted to grow to 3.5 million mt/y of ammonia and 1.5 million mt/y of urea.
Tatyanin told Tass that the construction of the new terminal could eliminate the problem of the Togliatti-Yuzhny ammonia pipeline being blocked. “The new Black Sea terminal, with a transshipment capacity of 3.5 million mt/y of ammonia, will adequately meet the needs of producers,” he said.
A further expansion of the terminal’s capacity for fertilizer transshipment is possible, according to Tatyanin, who told TASS that Uralchem is “considering several ideas for the development of the Taman terminal.”
The Togliatti-Yuzhny ammonia pipeline, which Russia used to transport ammonia for export to three Black Sea ports, has been shut since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Russia is reported to have sent more than 2 million mt/y of ammonia through the pipeline for export before the shutdown.
Earlier this month, a portion of the pipeline in the Kupiansk district of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region was damaged by explosions (GM June 9, p. 1). Kyiv said Russian missiles were responsible, while Moscow blamed Ukrainian saboteurs.