Whether the Fertilizer Market Can Get Out of the Depression and Suffering in 2011

In 2010, the Chinese fertilizer market showed a complex and volatile trend. On the one hand, under the favorable factors such as the price increase of grain and other agricultural products, the government continued to strengthen the investment and subsidy for agriculture and rural areas, and the recovery of the international fertilizer market, the fertilizer market has apparently rebounded. By the end of the year, the price of all fertilizers has surpassed the previous year's price level. Its consumption has also increased significantly. On the other hand, negative factors such as the tightening of policy environment, rising raw material costs, and intensified market competition have also continued to develop, leading to an anomalous situation in the first half of 2010 in which the price of fertiliser prices has fallen during the peak season. The price movements have fluctuated more and more frequently during the year.

In 2010, the production of chemical fertilizers, domestic consumption and exports both increased significantly and reached a record high. However, different types of chemical fertilizers have clearly differentiated, and nitrogen fertilizers have experienced a rare decline in production for many years. In 2010, the overall supply and demand of chemical fertilizers will continue to be loose, which is not conducive to the smooth progress of industry consolidation. Affected by the macro situation and the increase in prices of resource products, the cost of raw materials such as coal, natural gas and natural gas in China's chemical fertilizer industry, fuel costs in refined products and electricity, as well as manpower, environmental protection, and other aspects, all show rising trends. As a result, the production costs of chemical fertilizers have all gone up in 2010.

Domestic regional production and sales market

From the perspective of the market operation in the past two years, the production of enterprises is very rational, they can do everything within their power, on-demand production, self-adjustment of production plans in accordance with the market supply and demand, blindly pursuing the scale of the scale of the company, regardless of cost, drastically reduce, and now most companies to avoid market risks, are With production set by sales, the actual production capacity of enterprises is greatly reduced. In addition, the regional fertilizer market production system has been continuously improved and its advantages have been significantly enhanced. The local government has increased its attention to fertilizer production and sales. In early 2010, in order to ensure the production of fertilizer production enterprises in Yunnan Province and the need for fertilizers for agricultural production, Yunnan Province initiated the purchase and storage of chemical fertilizers in accordance with the principles of “government control, corporate reserves, banking, financial subsidies, and market operations”. The amount is 500,000 tons, including 300,000 tons of urea, 100,000 tons of phosphate fertilizer and 100,000 tons of compound fertilizer. Reserve sources are limited to products produced by Yunnan enterprises. The collection and storage period is from December 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010. From July 1st in Jincheng, Shanxi Province, the seven high-energy-consuming enterprises in the area were restricted from power production and maintenance. Among them, chemical fertilizer companies include Shanxi Lanhua Coal Chemical Industry Co., Ltd., Shanxi Orchid Science and Technology Chemical Branch Company, Shanxi Jinfeng Coal Chemical Industry Co., Ltd., Tianjiu Sinochem Gaoping Chemical Industry Co., Ltd., and Shanxi Orchid Danfeng Chemical Industry Co., Ltd. At the same time, Sichuan Province's provincial natural gas price adjustments have been raised from the previous 0.32 yuan per cubic meter to 1.20 yuan per cubic meter. This means that the raw material cost of gas head urea enterprises in Sichuan will increase substantially. On December 27, the Shandong Provincial Government and China Sinochem Corporation signed the Strategic Cooperation Framework Agreement. According to the agreement, the Shandong Provincial Government and Sinochem Group will establish a regular meeting mechanism for high-level leaders and a strategic cooperation promotion mechanism to conduct comprehensive and in-depth cooperation in the fields of energy, fertilizers, seeds, chemical logistics, finance, and energy conservation and emission reduction.

The development of domestic leading enterprises

In 2010/2011, the open-ended tender for commercial reserves for off-season fertilizers included 102.5 million tons of off-season commercial reserves for fertilizer and 700,000 tons of special phosphate fertilizer reserve for 2011. The fertilizer circulation enterprises that have been contracted for storage shall have a sales volume of 300,000 tons or more for three consecutive years. The fertilizer production enterprises that are contracted for storage shall have a sales network and produce more than 400,000 tons for three consecutive years. In the end, a total of 72 companies won the bid, of which 32 were manufacturing companies and assumed a total of 15.3 million tons of light storage targets. Sinochem Group and the People's Government of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement for nitrogen fertilizer production base on March 9. It will invest 16 billion yuan in Ningdong Energy Chemical Base across Yinchuan City and Wuzhong City to build 2 million tons of synthetic ammonia and 3.2 million tons of urea production projects in two phases. On August 23, Sichuan Chemical Holding Group Corporation signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Sichuan Branch of Agricultural Bank of China in Chengdu. In the next five years, ABC will provide Sichuan Chemical Company with an intentional credit line amounting to 15 billion yuan, aiming at deepening the strategic cooperation between banks and enterprises, accelerating the structural adjustment of enterprises, and advancing the company’s coal-based fertilizer and phosphate mining and selection process. Glyphosate and other key projects. On September 8, Shandong Jinzhengda Ecological Engineering Co., Ltd., the largest producer of slow-release fertilizers in China, was officially listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. The company's stock issue price is 15.00 yuan per share, the total number of shares issued this time is 100 million shares, mainly used for 600,000 tons / year of controlled-release fertilizer for new crops and the National Engineering Research Center for Controlled Release Fertilizer. On October 16th, the Qinghai Salt Lake Group held a trial run for the first phase of the 1 million ton comprehensive utilization project of potash fertilizer products. The project includes an annual output of 60,000 tons of potassium hydroxide, 72,000 tons of potassium carbonate, 100,000 tons of PVC, 100,000 tons of methanol, 330,000 tons of urea, coal-fired heating centers and supporting engineering facilities. The project has basically completed 4.5 billion yuan. Yuan's budget investment.

International market environment

In the past ten years when the international and domestic markets continued to improve, the domestic chemical fertilizer production capacity expanded rapidly. The urea production exceeded 60 million tons, and the MAP and DAP production capacities exceeded 12 million tons. The compound fertilizer and BB fertilizer companies abound and have gone far beyond. The domestic demand for chemical fertilizers has caused a serious excess of domestic fertilizer production capacity. However, in the past two years, the domestic fertilizer market has strengthened cooperation with the international fertilizer market to maintain a balance between supply and marketing and to open up a larger international market. For example, at the beginning of 2010, the Israeli potash fertilizer supplier ICL and 6 Chinese compound fertilizer companies (China-Afghanistan) The company, PetroChina, Luxi Chemicals, Hubei Yangfeng, Western Group, and Luxi Group signed the 2010 potash fertilizer supply contract with a quantity of 200,000 tons at a price of US$352/tonne (CFR). Immediately afterwards, Canada potash supplier Canpotex and Sinochem Fertilizer signed a potash supply contract, amounting to 350,000 tons. On November 21st, APC (ArabPotashCompany Jordan Jordan Potash Corp.) announced that it had signed an exclusive agent contract for the supply and marketing of potash fertilizer for 2011-2013 with Sinochem Macau. The latter will supply 1.8 million tons of potash fertilizer to the latter in three years, and the pricing cycle will be adjusted every six months.

In the integration of domestic and international markets, the price of fertilizers in the international market determines the domestic market for fertilizers. The future nitrogen fertilizer, phosphate fertilizer, and potash fertilizer prices all depend on the market conditions of international fertilizers in the winter. The international fertilizer market will inevitably encourage, promote, and activate the domestic market. Fertilizer market conditions. In 2010, domestic fertilizer companies stepped up their cooperation with international fertilizer companies. Zhongchuan Mining Company and Canadian company Hatch signed the "Memorandum of Cooperation on the Development and Construction of an Annual Output of 3 Million Tons of Potassium Chloride Overseas Potassium Base" at the end of June, marking the Zhongchuan District. The mining company's potassium salt base project in Canada was officially launched. China's Yunnan Province Institute of Chemical Industry and Zhongmu Mining Investment Development Co., Ltd. jointly ran a successful pilot test of the 2,500-ton/year potassium salt column flotation test facility in Laos, which is a 50,000-ton/year MOP industrial project in Laos. The demonstration device provides a pilot technology that can be used for reference. On October 20th, Sinofert signed an agreement with 3 potash suppliers including PotashCorp, which will supply at least 1 million tons, 1.05 million tons and 1.1 million to Sinofert annually in 2011-2013. Tons of potash fertilizer, and ensure that the amount of potash fertilizer supplied to Sinofert for three years is not less than one-third of the total import volume of Chinese potash fertilizer in the same period; and the contractual maximum amounts for the above three years are agreed to be 600 million, 730 million and 870 million US dollars, respectively.

Policy Guidance

Accelerate the establishment of a market-led fertilizer price formation mechanism. Promptly change the ex-factory price of all chemical fertilizers and the general trade price of fertilizers other than potash fertilizers to the price of imported fertilizers from the government to the market adjustment price, cancel the temporary price intervention measures for the production and circulation of fertilizers, and continue to import higher concentration of the market. Potash is subject to moderate price supervision. Temporarily retain preferential policies and preferential tax policies for the use of electricity, gas, and railway transportation for fertilizer production. This is a consistent favorable policy for the fertilizer market. In 2010, the central government earmarked 687 million yuan of direct subsidy for grain farmers on February 4th, including 15.1 billion yuan for grain direct subsidies and 71.6 billion yuan for comprehensive subsidies for agricultural resources. Last year was flat. The Ministry of Finance requires financial departments at all levels to redeem the subsidy funds to farmers before spring plowing. The Ministry of Agriculture also decided to provide soil testing and formula fertilization for free of 160 million rural households in 2010, promote soil testing and fertilization techniques for more than 73 million hectares, use more than 27 million hectares of farmer formula fertilizer, and conduct soil testing and formulating fertilization demonstration areas per hectare. Savings increase by more than 450 yuan. At the same time, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Circular on Adjusting the Price of Natural Gas Pipeline Transportation" and decided that since April 25th, the price of natural gas pipelines to implement the national unified tariff will increase by 0.08 yuan per cubic meter. The price adjustment scope includes Sichuan, Chongqing and Yunnan. And 11 provinces and cities such as Hebei.

The changes in China’s import and export tariff policies on fertilizers will undoubtedly affect China’s chemical fertilizer exports. The Ministry of Commerce issued an “Announcement on the Conditions and Procedures for the Filing of Export Quotas for Phosphate Rocks in 2011”. For production enterprises, one of the conditions for the declaration of export quotas for phosphate ore is to export 20,000 tons of phosphate ore (western enterprises for at least one year) from 2007 to 2009; the application condition of western circulation enterprises is that at least one year in three years will be exported. 15,000 tons, other regional companies require annual exports of more than 10,000 tons.

The 12th Five-Year Fertilizer Industry Development Plan targets the development and transformation and focuses on the development of slow-release fertilizers, controlled-release fertilizers, and special fertilizers and functional fertilizers. 2011 is the first year of the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan”, and the plan will undoubtedly have an important impact on the development of the industry. Under the guidance of industry policies, the future development model of the fertilizer industry will also shift from "hard inputs" to "soft inputs." There will be no major adjustments to the restrictions on fertilizer export policies in 2011. This is determined by the resources and energy attributes of fertilizer products. Export tariff policies still focus on maintaining the total supply of chemical fertilizers in the country and market price stability. The adjustment of domestic fertilizer export tariff policies still focuses on the balanced production and export of domestic fertilizer production enterprises. Outlook As the government continues to support agricultural production as the focus of economic policies, coupled with the long-term increase in food prices to stimulate the consumption of chemical fertilizers, fertilizers as supporting agriculture industry is still expected to obtain strong support in 2011. We expect that fertiliser production will continue to increase slightly in 2011, with nitrogen fertilizer production picking up, and the momentum of high-speed phosphorus fertilizer production will slow down significantly. The proportion of high-concentration fertilizers such as urea and diammonium phosphate will increase in the industrial structure. Fertilizer consumption is expected to continue to rise, but the export volume is difficult to reach the highest level in 2010. The supply and demand relationship will show a basically balanced and slightly looser situation.

In 2011, the operating environment of fertilizer companies will become more severe. In terms of industrial policies, restrictions on investment and industrial development, increased pressure on environmental protection, reduction in the period of low export tariffs, and comprehensive liberalization of raw material pricing policies such as coal and natural gas have further dampened the profitability of fertilizer companies. All costs (production, logistics, environmental protection, manpower, etc.) will continue to rise.

Due to the overall easing of supply and demand conditions and higher prices at the end of 2010, it is difficult for fertilizer prices to rise substantially in 2011, even though the tight supply of urea is rising due to relatively weak purchasing power of farmers and government price regulation. At the same time, due to the seasonal changes in chemical fertilization, frequent policy adjustments, and increasingly fierce competition, the volatility of the fertilizer market will continue to increase. Therefore, we expect the fertilizer industry's profit forecast in 2011 to be more pessimistic.