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Phosphate Price

Traditional Phosphate Demand Drivers

  • Growing worldwide agricultural need for fertilizer to increase yields.
  • Growing population and need to feed more people on smaller lands.
  • Phosphate Trade Wars: US import tariffs on Moroccan and Russian production. Russian, Chinese and Turkish export restrictions.
  • Conflict, ethical supply considerations (Morocco-Western Sahara).
  • Difficulty in locating secure and consistent supply sources.
  • High barriers to entry for new mines and new processing facilities.
  • ESG, carbon and environmental issues around existing sedimentary deposits and dredging of sensitive areas, radioactive gypsum slag piles.
  • Clean supply issues around sedimentary deposits: European Union constraints on cadmium (60mg/Kg P2O5 cadmium).
  • Small amount of clean igneous rock-based phosphate in world.

Phosphate Rock Price

Source:YCharts Morocco Phosphate Rock Price

Peak Phosphorus Curve

Peak phosphate supply could occur by 2033 (based on traditional fertilizer demand drivers and before accounting for LFP battery demand growth). Securing access to clean igneous rock-based phosphate deposits in politically safe jurisdictions becomes of increasing strategic importance as fertilizer and LFP battery demand grows.

Source: The Story of Phosphorus: Global Food Security and Food for Thought Dana Cordell, Jan-Olof Drangert, Stuart White; Global Environmental Change (2009).

Projected Phosphate Demand to 2100

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