Aug.
2014 – CCM gave special attention to a phenomenon existing in China's phosphate
fertilizer industry that most phosphate fertilizer enterprises export their
high-quality phosphate fertilizers abroad to alleviate the overcapacity, which
to a great degree brings about serious outflow of China's high-quality
phosphorus ore indirectly.
In recent
years, the international phosphate fertilizer giants taking the Mosaic Company
as representative, have accelerated their investment in Morocco, Tunisia,
Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other countries with abundant phosphorus ore,
obviously intending to raise their influences in the global market through
controlling the phosphorus ore as the starting point. However, in contrast to
the trend mentioned above, Chinese enterprises still export their phosphate
fertilizers made from the high-quality phosphorus ore overseas on the basis of
China’s large proportion of medium- and low-grade phosphorus ore and the low
utilization rate, which indirectly accelerating the loss of China’s
high-quality phosphorus ore.
According to
the statistics from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the global
economic reserves and basic reserves of phosphate rocks (phosphorus ore is the
general term for the available phosphate minerals in economy) are 18 billion
tonnes and 50 billion tonnes respectively (economic reserves refer to the
phosphorus ore with mining cost less than USD35/t and basic reserves refer to
those with mining cost less than USD100/t). In fact, over 80% phosphate rocks are
clustered in Morocco, the US, South Africa, Jordan and China. Of this, China’s
phosphorus ore reserves and basic reserves are 4.1 billion tonnes and 10
billion tonnes, accounting for 27.14% and 21.28% of the global volume
respectively. However, there are few high-grade phosphorus ore but rich
low-grade phosphorus ore in China and the average grade only reaches 17%
phosphorus pentoxide ( P2O5). The high-grade phosphorus
ore with over 30% P2O5 only
accounts for 8.5% of the total. What's worse, over 90% of medium- and low-grade
phosphorus ore cannot be used directly. In view of the analysis conducted by
related experts, the current Chinese phosphorus ore may run out within about 20
years.
Phosphorus ore
are mainly used in producing phosphate fertilizers and phosphoric acid. With
the increasing population worldwide, more and more phosphate fertilizers are in
demand to guarantee the food supply. In 2012, the global consumption of
phosphate fertilizer was 41.9 million tonnes and it is predicted that the
figure will reach 45.3 million tonnes by 2016. According to the preliminary
statistics summarized by the China Phosphate Fertilizer Industry Association,
China totally output around 16.5 million tonnes of phosphate fertilizers in
2013, of which about 11.88 million tonnes were consumed in the planting
industry. Additionally, about 80% phosphorus ore are adopted to manufacture
phosphate fertilizers directly or indirectly in China. In recent years,
exporting the high-quality phosphate fertilizer is the natural choice to solve
China's overcapacity of phosphate fertilizers. It is disclosed that the average
export volume of Chinese phosphate fertilizers is around 2.2 million tonnes and
a great deal of high-grade phosphorus ore with low-content cadmium drain to the
overseas markets. According to data from China Customs, in H1 2014, China
exported 596,100 tonnes of monoammonium phosphate, up 201% year on year, 1.27
million tonnes of diammonium phosphate, up 146% year on year, and 493,900
tonnes of triple superphosphate, rising by 116% year on year.
Once China's
high-grade phosphorus ore fail to meet the domestic needs of producing
phosphate fertilizers, China has to import phosphorus ore or phosphate
fertilizers from overseas. At that moment, China will suffer restrictions in the
purchase volume and the price of phosphate fertilizers and most imported
phosphorus ore or phosphate fertilizers are likely to contain much more cadmium
than the Chinese phosphorus fertilizers does. In order to prevent such
problems, the Chinese government and enterprises should exploit and utilize the
precious phosphorus ore in a reasonable way from now on.
For the
Chinese government, firstly, it should improve the access threshold for
phosphorus ore exploitation and advance the large-scale and intensive
development and utilization of phosphorus ore. Furthermore, it can carry out
rational plans, regulate related measures to protect phosphorus ore and control
and eliminate unqualified enterprises. Secondly, the Chinese government should
intensify the resource exploration and excavate new phosphorus ore resources.
The Ministry of Land and Resources of People's Republic of China and related
departments should strengthen the exploration capacity for mines, especially
for the surroundings and the deep of key mines with favorable phosphoric
mineralization to excavate more high-grade phosphorus ore. Thirdly, the Chinese
government should intensify supports to the comprehensive utilization
technologies of phosphorus ore. China should input more spending to the new
technologies, contributing to the energy conservation, emission reduction and
consumption reduction in the phosphorus chemical industry so as to improve the
level of comprehensively utilizing Chinese phosphorus ore. These new
technologies include the technology of producing high-concentrated phosphate
compound fertilizers directly based on the medium- and low-grade phosphorus ore
and the technology of fully using sulfur and associated resources based on the
chemical-process phosphogysum. Fourthly, the Chinese government should
encourage enterprises to invest overseas so as to achieve more phosphorus ore
with low prices. Through implementing related policies, the Chinese government
can encourage large enterprises to take measures such as making investments, jointing
capital and merger to establish their own phosphorus ore businesses overseas
and participate in the phosphorus chemical asset integration with Morocco,
Saudi Arabia and other countries in North Africa and the Middle East in order
to collect more cheap phosphorus ore.
For
enterprises, Chinese phosphorus ore enterprises and phosphate fertilizer
enterprises should rationally utilize their resources and appropriately export
their products abroad. Besides, they should enhance the recovery of phosphorus
ore mining and ore dressing, rationally exploit and fully utilize China's
limited phosphorus with low-content cadmium and consider to export appropriate
volume of phosphate fertilizers under the precondition of ensuring the
sustainable supply in the domestic market.
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This
article was provided by CCM, a leading
provider of data and business intelligence on China’s chemicals market. For
more information on CCM and China Li-ion Battery E-News, please visit www.cnchemicals.com or contact econtact@cnchemicals.com
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