A look at the Phosphate Industry in the World and Iran's Opportunities in Developing the Value Chain of this Mineral Material

Phosphate value chain, although in terms of number, has many applications, but in terms of production volume is driven by the chemical fertilizer market. Approximately 90% of the phosphate produced in the world is used for the production of chemical fertilizers. The most important and widely used end products in the phosphate value chain are ammonium phosphate fertilizers, which are produced from the reaction of phosphoric acid and ammonia in petrochemical units. The compound fertilizer industry is directly related to the development of the mining and petrochemical industries and access to raw materials for these industries. With the development of urea and ammonia petrochemicals, Iran has been able to have a relatively good position in the market of 13 billion dollars of urea as the most important nitrogen fertilizer with exports of about 0.5 billion dollars, however, the underdevelopment of phosphate industry in Iran has caused no market share of $ 25 billion in compound fertilizers has been achieved .Cheap gas energy, abundance of sulfur (as a raw material for the production of sulfuric acid) and high production of ammonia in the country, are among Iran's competitive advantages for the production of chemical fertilizer. Estimates indicate that Iran needs 500,000 tons more phosphate imports than the current amount to be self-sufficient in the production of phosphoric acid and chemical fertilizers, and if it moves to gain at least 5% of India's chemical fertilizers market, it will need another 600 thousand tons of phosphate rock.