Market leaders join Argus fertilizer conference
The Argus Fertilizers 2020: Russia, CIS and Baltic international conference was held on 25 September. The event was being held for the fourth time, but in a hybrid format for the first time — part of the audience and speakers gathered at the conference venue in the St Regis Moscow Nikolskaya hotel in Moscow, while others joined online.
Eurochem Trading Rus was digital sponsor of the conference.
The event was attended by over 100 people from more than 60 companies and 25 countries. Participants included representatives from Eurochem, Uralchem, Kuibyshevazot, PhosAgro-Region, Shchekinoazot, ICL Fertilizer, Yara Suomi, Rostov Sea Multimodal Port and others.
Oliver Hatfield, vice-president for fertilizer business development at Argus, presented an overview of the global fertilizer market. He covered the situation in the markets for urea, ammonia, phosphate and potash fertilizers and noted some positive development trends. But growth potential is very limited, Hatfield said.
Valentina Kolodinskaya, commercial director of the Urea Research Institute, spoke about planned and implemented projects in the fertilizer markets of Russia and the FSU. She emphasised the growing role of domestic gas processing. The development of gas chemical projects is contributing to an upturn in the Russian agricultural industry.
Argus analyst Irina Kuguchina covered the Russian fertilizer market in her report. Tatyana Grebennikova, head of the marketing department at Eurochem Trading Rus, spoke about new fertilizers in the Russian market as well as the drivers of, and hindrances in, the fertilizer sector.
Morstroytechnology leading specialist Olga Gopkalo presented an overview of new infrastructure projects for the transshipment of fertilizers at Russian seaports. Overseas shipments of Russian fertilizers are growing and will continue to do so in the future, she said. At the same time, the role of seaports in export logistics is increasing. The role of key ports in servicing export cargo flows has also changed, Gopkalo said. While most cargoes were previously shipped via the Baltics for historical reasons, the share of far eastern ports has now increased.
The conference ended with a report by Vladimir Savchuk, deputy chief executive at the Institute for Natural Monopolies Research, which looked at the market for transporting fertilizers by rail.
Market participants showed a great deal of interest in the issues raised at the conference. Discussions on the fertilizer market will continue at subsequent Argus events.