India’s Fertilizer Demand Exceeds Expectations of Both Mosaic and PhosAgro

Mining.com reported that Russia’s PhosAgro (MCX:PHOR) is projecting a jump in India’s demand for fertilizers this year, echoing claims made by US-based rival Mosaic (NYSE:MOS).

As quoted in the market news:

According to chief executive Andrei Guryev, India’s “explosive demand” for phosphate fertilizers may make of 2015 the best year for the company since at least 2008, he said in an interview withBloomberg earlier this month.

A day earlier, Mosaic’s CEO Jim Prokopanko told investors that Indian demand was exceeding the company’s “own bullish estimates.”

Both comments proved to true shortly after as Phosagro signed Thursday a three-year supply contract with Indian Potash (IPL) to deliver 1.35 million tons of phosphoric fertilizer over the course of three years, from 2015 to 2018.

India is the world’s No.2 consumer of phosphate fertilisers and the largest importer of Diammonium phosphate (DAP), the most widely used of them. Demand, however, has been depressed in recent years, helping to trigger a slump in prices in India from a high of $660 per tonne in 2011 to around $485 this week.

Because of that drop in demand, Phosagro had sold practically no fertilizer to India over the last two years. But now the company expects to increase exports to the Asian country by more than 60% to 6.5-7 million tons.

Click here to read the full Mining.com report.