New York City-Mosaic Co. Executive Vice President and CFO Lawrence Stranghoener said that 2-2.5 percent demand growth for phosphate is going to create a need for the phosphate coming out of Saudi Arabia’s new Ma’aden phosphate project, which he said is slated to begin production late next year. The project will start off with 3 million mt/y capacity, but could be expanded to 6 million mt/y. “…For many, many years, we used to look at it as the Death Star out there,” said Stranghoener, speaking at the BMO Capital Markets Agriculture, Protein & Fertilizer Conference. “I think ironically it’s proven to be a valuable thing and that has probably prevented a lot of other potential capacity expansion from coming onstream.” He said the logical market for the product is Asia. “We’re preparing for that. I think this base load contract we’ve announced with India suggests that we intend to continue to be a supplier to that market.” In other phosphate news, Bayovar phosphate rock project in Peru should come onstream later this summer, with Mosaic taking rock from the mine in its next fiscal year. Mosaic recently bought a stake in the mine. In potash news, Stranghoener said the company recently extended its reserve life by ten years at Carlsbad, N.M., by acquiring additional mineral rights. He said Mosaic owns enough mineral reserves to run its potash mines for over 100 years. Ongoing expansions in Canada are expected to increase annual capacity by over 5 million mt by 2020.
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