An Overview of the Liquid Complex Fertiliser Market in the CIS

     Liquid fertilisers are water solutions or suspensions of mineral or some organic nutrient components. The most popular are nitrogen-containing and liquid complex fertilisers. The first group includes liquid anhydrous ammonia, ammonia water (2% water solution of NH3), ammoniates (calcium nitrate and ammonium nitrate solutions, and also urea solution in ammonia water), and carbon ammoniates (water solutions of ammonium carbonate or water solutions of ammonium hydrocarbonate and urea). The application of the fertilisers containing free NH3 is hindered due to a requirement to their transportation and storage in airtight and corrosion-resistant containers. Liquid complex fertilisers (LCF) are more user-friendly. This group unites salt solutions containing two or more main nutrient components (N, P, K), and also macroelements (Ca, Mg, S) and microelements (Fe, Mn, B, Cu, Zn, Mo, Co).
     The article is focused on the current state of the LCF and urea-ammonium nitrates (UAN) market in the CIS. UAN represents a water-based solution of urea and ammonium nitrate.
     At present Russia is the only CIS country which consumes nitrogen-phosphorous LCF (11:37 grade). The CIS market capacity is limited to the capacity of the exclusive producer Ammophos JSC which supplies over one half of its production to the foreign markets. Up to 97% of urea-ammonium nitrates produced in Ukraine are also exported. The newly developed LCF production facility at Grodno Azot (Belarus) cannot boast substantial amounts of production as of yet, and thereof does not affect the CIS market capacity. There are no signs of any plans envisaging a recovery of the halted companies or attempts to start up the new ones for the manufacturing of this type of fertiliser, thus, LCF consumption in the near term is unlikely to grow.

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