Russian agrochemical producer PhosAgro plans to up output 2% to more than 11.5 mln tonnes in 2024

ST. PETERSBURG. March 6 (Interfax) - PhosAgro plans to increase output to more than 11.5 million tonnes in 2024, the Russian agrochemical producer's CEO Mikhail Rybnikov told reporters.

"We plan to increase output, as in previous years. I think it'll be more than 11.5 million tonnes," he said.

PhosAgro raised output of agrichemical products to 11.3 million tonnes in 2023, so this might rise 2% in 2024.

Rybnikov said prices for phosphate-based fertilizers had remained stable over the past five or six months. "Maybe it is not growing that much, but the main thing is that it is not falling. Now it is, roughly speaking, $500 or more, which is actually a record high," he said.

Asked about plans to increase capacity further, Rybnikov said PhosAgro was still committed to its strategy to develop the phosphate segment and continued to analyze projects in the nitrogen segment. "We are still analyzing new proposals [in the nitrogen segment], which require quite a lot of work, because these are new licensors, new contractors for us," he said.

"All that was planned [in the phosphate segment] is being carried out. The key year will be 2025, when we will have a major increase in production at all three sites: Volkhov, Cherepovets and especially in Balakovo," Rybnikov said. He said the company had its own research institute, "which has expertise in all stages of the production of phosphate and complex fertilizers."

PhosAgro in late 2021 announced plans to build a complex in Cherepovets with a capacity of about 1 million tonnes of ammonia and up to 1 million tonnes of urea per year. The company expected to choose the contractor for the project in February 2022, but the tender was not completed.

PhosAgro management said last year that the company was discussing the project with licensors from China. "Opportunities have arisen to obtain Chinese technology and equipment. We are now at the stage of working out what size it [the plant] will be, what the timeframe and costs will be," said Andrei Serov, head of the company's investor relations department.

PhosAgro's Rybnikov said in the summer of 2023 said that a final investment decision on the project could be made in the first half of 2024.

PhosAgro launched a new mineral fertilizer production complex at its site in Volkhov, Leningrad Region on March 5. The project cost more than 34 billion rubles and it took four years to deliver. As a result, production of finished product at the plant will quadruple compared to 2019 to 1 million tonnes per year, PhosAgro said.

PhosAgro Group includes JSC Apatit in Cherepovets, Vologda Region, its branches in Kirovsk, Murmansk Region, Balakovo, Saratov Region and Volkhov; PhosAgro Region LLC; and the Samoilov Fertilizer and Insectofungicide Research Institute.