The Mosaic Co.’s plan to cut some 150,000 mt per month of phosphate production, will come initially from the company’s Bartow, Fla., plant, the company confirmed with Green Markets Dec. 20. The company explained that Bartow was due a maintenance turnaround and this will be done in January. After this is completed, the situation will be determined on a month-by-month basis depending on market conditions.

An initial report in the Lakeland Ledger, termed the situation at Bartow as a shutdown. Instead, Mosaic says the plant will be down for maintenance with no furloughs for the some 360 employees.

The Mosaic Co. on Dec. 19 announced that it intends to reduce fertilizer production until markets improve. The company plans to decrease phosphate production at its Central Florida facilities by 150,000 mt per month. This follows the 500,000 mt reduction it took in second-half 2019, mainly in Louisiana. In addition, Mosaic said it will continue to operate at lower rates in its Canadian potash business.

“A third consecutive disappointing application season in North America has led to continuing high inventories and price weakness. Mosaic will not produce at high rates when we are unable to realize reasonable prices,” said President and CEO Joc O’Rourke. 

Nutrien Ltd., Saskatoon, has announced it will keep its Vanscoy potash mine down through the end of January. It cited market conditions. Some 265 employees will be affected. It was originally to come back up at the end of December. The idled Allan and Lanigan mines are expected to return to production Dec. 29 as previously planned and their production is expected to be sufficient to help the company meet near term demand.

N-7 LLC (N-7), a joint venture between OCI NV, Amsterdam, and Dakota Gasification Co. (DGC), and Dyno Nobel Inc., a subsidiary of Australia’s Incitec Pivot Ltd., have reached agreement on commercial terms for the marketing of Dyno Nobel’s industrial urea products, including diesel exhaust fluid (DEF), urea liquor, and automotive grade urea (AGU) in North America.

The Andersons, Inc., Maumee, Ohio, on Dec. 5 completed the sale of the agronomy business of Thompsons Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary in Ontario, Canada, to Sylvite of Burlington, Ont.

OCP SA, Casablanca, reported a 5 percent fall in third-quarter EBITDA to MAD4.6 billion ($478 million) on revenues of MAD14.87 billion ($1.55 billion), down from the year-ago MAD4.82 billion ($511 million) and MAD14.5 billion ($1.54 billion), respectively. Revenues were up by nearly 3 percent, driven by increased fertilizer exports, the company said.