NPK Rises
7 August 2010 Following a year of low sales and production due to inventory carry-overs worldwide, fertilizer is making a comeback. Demand in 2010/11 is estimated at 170.4 million tonnes (Mt), a 4.8% increase compared to 2009/10, and forecast at 188.3 Mt in 2014/15, according to International Fertilizer Association (IFA).
Breaking It Down
By far, the biggest crop use for fertilizer is on cereals, which make up 50% of the world total, including 55% of world nitrogen (N) use, 45% of phosphorus (P) consumption and 33% of potassium (K) fertilizer applications, according to Patrick Heffer, director of the agriculture service, IFA. World cereal production is expected to reach a record 2.28 billion tonnes in 2010. Heffer also lists corn, soybean, palm oil and sugar cane as crops likely to increase their share of the world fertilizer market.
• The Fertilizer Industry’s Contribution To Global Food Security
Emerging economies and a positive agricultural outlook are helping pick up the fertilizer industry, says Heffer, with demand for N projected to grow 1.9%; P is expected to rise 4.5%, and K will increase 18% during the next year.
Continued growth is predicted in all regions except Latin America, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Pacific islands including Australia and New Zealand. Strong demand is anticipated in South Asia, as well as a rebound in East Asia, North America, and Western and Central Europe. P and K are forecast for significant demand in East Asia, which — along with South Asia and Latin America — is to be the main region contributing to the global rise in N demand.
IFA Executive Secretary, Production and International Trade Committee, Michel Prud’homme predicts that during the period from 2009 to 2014, global fertilizer trade “will expand by 15% to 33%, depending on the nutrient products and regions.”
Biofueling Growth
Biofuel production is also driving the positive outlook, says Heffer. “In 2008/09, it has been assumed that 33% of US corn, 55% of Brazilian sugarcane and 66% of EU canola have been used as feedstock for biofuel production,” Heffer says, estimating almost 5 Mt of nutrients — or 3.2% of fertilizer consumption — that year were applied to biofuel crops. “Nutrient-wise, some 3 Mt of N, 0.9 Mt of P2O5 and 1.1 Mt of K2O were applied to biofuels crops,” he says, which equal 3%, 2.5% and 4.8% of global N, P2O5 and K2O, respectively.
“Without biofuels, world demand for grain and sugar — and therefore, fertilizer — would have been much more depressed in 2008/09,” Heffer says.
Supply Side
Despite all the “peak fertilizer” speculation during the past several years, Prud’homme sees the potential for resilient annual supply surpluses of phosphate rock, potash and urea due to the emergence of large capacities in the main exporting regions. During the next five years, the market conditions of phosphate fertilizers — notably diammonium phosphate (DAP), merchant phosphoric acid, merchant ammonia and sulphur — are seen to be relatively balanced due to firm demand growth and a gradual increase of capacity.
Prud’homme says global potash capacity is forecast to increase from 41.6 Mt K2O in 2009 to 54.7 Mt in 2014, representing an additional 13 Mt of capacity from mostly Canada and Russia.
“World phosphate rock capacity is projected to increase 38 million tonnes during the next four years, to reach 228 million tonnes in 2014,” says Prud’homme, with half the growth expected from new suppliers in Peru, Australia and Kazakhstan. The main additions to phosphate fertilizer capacity will come from China, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.
“Total capacity is projected to increase 23% over 2009,” he says. “The expansion of DAP capacity will account for three-quarters of this 8.2 Mt P2O5 increase.”
Urea is also expected to grow between 2009 and 2014, with plans for 55 new urea plants to come online, about 20 of which are located in East Asia. “Global urea capacity is forecast to grow by 51.3 Mt, or by 30% over 2009, to reach 222 Mt in 2014,” Prud’homme says.
As far as factors having the potential of influencing future global fertilizer supply, Prud’homme names rising energy prices, new environmental concerns and regulations, as well as government policies regarding resources and exports which could affect investments, trade patterns and market conditions. “The implementation of high taxes on the resources sector would reduce the attractiveness of investing in new large-scale projects, slow down capacity growth and eventually promote developments abroad,” Prud’homme says, adding that export taxes in China “have reduced export availability in international markets.”
Technology Changes
New technology, such as the N-efficient corn under development by both Monsanto and Pioneer, seems counter to increased N use. However, International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI) Northeast Director Tom Bruulsema says that improved N use efficiency “doesn’t necessarily mean less N per acre. In the past 40 years in the (US) corn belt, the amount of corn produced per unit of fertilizer N applied has increased by 78%, while N rates went up 30%.”
Even though N use efficiency is also increasing in wheat in the EU and rice in Japan, Bruulsema doesn’t believe biotech innovations will reach a point anytime soon where fertilizer use is drastically reduced. “Biotechnology can and already has contributed to reducing the amount of fertilizer N that is used to produce a tonne of corn,” he says. “But until the increasing global demand trend for food, feed, fiber and fuel begins to reverse, the need to increase production would make reduced rates of application per unit of land area unlikely.”
However, this also means that N use per acre is also unlikely to rise again. “The increasing trend in application rates has leveled off in recent years,” says Bruulsema, who explains that unless there are large increases in yield potential, or changes to crop rotations that increase cropping intensity — the proportion of the year during which crops are actively growing — N use is likely to remain steady. Bruulsema says suppliers probably have nothing to fear from improved N use efficiency in corn. “In fact, if biotechnology truly improves N use efficiency, it will increase the value of the N to the producer.”
In other technology advances, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have found that a new way to make topographical maps with radar can determine high-yielding zones from low-yielding ones, allowing growers to invest most of their fertilizer application to the highest-yielding zones. Optical sensing and variable rate application have also been proven to improve N use efficiency.
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