EuroChem Group AG will inaugurate its phosphate fertilizer production complex in Serra do Salitre in Brazil’s southeastern Minas Gerais state on March 13, according to a Valor International report, citing an interview with the company’s Head of South America, Gustavo Horbach
The Zug-based fertilizer group reported in late December that the Salitre complex was 95% complete and operations would begin in February-March (GM Jan. 26, p. 25). It said at the time that it had received the license to start operations at the complex’s sulfuric acid and phosphoric acid units.
The complex will have a production capacity of 1 million mt/y of phosphate fertilizers, comprising MAP/NP and SSP/TSP products. EuroChem expects to produce 500,000 mt of fertilizers in the first year of operation and aims to reach full production in 2025. EuroChem has invested a total of $1 billion in Serra do Salitre, including the acquisition cost.
The group bought the Serra do Salitre project from Yara International ASA in 2021, when the project was 50% complete, paying some $410 million (GM Aug. 6, 2021). The acquired assets also included phosphate mining operations with an annual production capacity of 1.2 million mt/y of phosphate rock.
With the start of operations at the new production complex, EuroChem’s total volume of fertilizer deliveries in Brazil in 2024 is anticipated to reach 7.5 million mt, according to the report, citing Horbach. This volume is some 1 million mt more than in 2023, when EuroChem supplied Brazil with 6.5 million mt of fertilizer, he said.
With its newly operational Serra do Salitre complex, EuroChem anticipates that Brazil’s reliance on imported fertilizers could decrease by 15%, Horbach told Valor International. The group aims to deliver 10 million mt of fertilizer to the Brazilian market by 2025, “positioning itself as a competitor to Mosaic and Yara in the country’s fertilizer production market,” according to the report.
Horbach said in another interview in September last year that EuroChem aims to reach a capacity of 10 million mt/y of installed and operating fertilizer production capacity in Brazil by 2025, and already had achieved some 8.8 million mt/y by August 2023 (GM Sept. 8, 2023).
In Brazil, EuroChem owns a 79.98% controlling stake in Fertilizantes Heringer SA (GM June 30, 2023) and 100% of Brazilian fertilizer blender and distributor Fertilizantes Tocantins (GM Aug. 21, 2020).