EuroChem Group AG reported late last month that it has received the license to start operations at the sulfuric acid and phosphoric acid units at its Serra do Salitre Mining Industrial Complex in Brazil’s southeastern Minas Gerais state.
Permission from the state’s Council for Environmental Policy (Copam) was the last authorization the Switzerland-based group needed to start activities. EuroChem said the Salitre complex was 95% complete and operations at the site are expected to begin in February-March 2024.
On completion, in addition to sulfuric acid and phosphoric acid production, the Salitre complex will have a production capacity of 1 million mt/y of phosphate fertilizers comprising MAP/NP and SSP/TSP products.
EuroChem said it will ramp up production gradually and expects to produce around 500,000 mt of fertilizers in the first year of operation. The company expects to reach full production in 2025.
EuroChem bought the Serra do Salitre project from Yara International ASA in 2021, when the project was 50% complete (GM Aug. 6, 2021). EuroChem paid a cash consideration of some $410 million for the Serra do Salitre phosphate assets.
The acquired assets also included phosphate mining operations at an open pit, including a tailings dam, with an annual production capacity of approximately 1.2 million mt/y of phosphate rock. The mine has more than 350 million mt of reserves and is EuroChem’s first mine outside of the European continent.
Gustavo Horbach, EuroChem’s Head of South America, said in September 2023, when the project was 85% complete, that the facility will meet some 15% of Brazilian demand for phosphate fertilizers once it is fully ramped up (GM Sept. 8, 2023). He put the total capex for the project at $1 billion.
According to Horbach, EuroChem aims to reach a capacity of 10 million mt/y of installed and operating fertilizer production capacity in Brazil by 2025, and had already achieved some 8.8 million mt/y by August 2023.