Magazine: Fertilizer International

We report on how the fertilizer industry and individual companies are working to mitigate the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

ICL Group’s executive vice president (EVP) Eli Amon has been appointed to lead its newly-created crop nutrition marketing business. He will also continue in his current role as EVP for ICL’s Innovative Ag Solutions division. Mr Amon has been with ICL for 29 years, serving in several executive sales, marketing and logistics roles.

The widespread problem of soil micronutrient deficiency has come under the spotlight in recent years. We look at the range of specialist fertilizer products able to tackle micronutrient deficits in crops and soils.

Demand from horticulture has seen the use of water-soluble phosphates rise globally to almost one million tonnes annually. We assess the market and its growth prospects, identify leading producers and highlight recent product innovations.

The fertilizer market remains a commodity market. The three major nutrients N, P and K, more often than not, are supplied through four main products: urea, diammonium phosphate, monoammonium phosphate (DAP and MAP) and potassium chloride (MOP). Combined world consumption of these long-standing, globally-traded commodities is north of 300 million tonnes annually.

We profile a selection of innovative speciality products and agronomic technologies that have recently been brought to market.

Weir Minerals has the global engineering expertise to tackle the world’s harshest and most extreme mine and quarry environments. These range from Canada’s frozen north to tropical Indonesia and the remote deserts of Chile, Mongolia and Australia. This expertise extends to Florida’s phosphate mining district, where a dedicated multi-disciplinary team is delivering an integrated approach to some tough mining challenges.

As the industrial value chain for fertilizers and their raw materials manages its way through the unprecedented global Covid-19 pandemic, Metso Outotec’s Hannes Storch, Collin Bartlett & Marcus Runkel reflect on the range of digital tools installed by the company at its industrial reference plants globally.

ICL Group has launched an interactive online advisory forum for farmers and agronomists.

The phosphates market to date has remained remarkably resilient during the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite early fears, 2020 has seen strong overall demand so far and no major supply-side disruptions. But concerns still lie ahead, as Alberto Persona , principal phosphate analyst at Fertecon/IHS Markit, explains.