RIA Novosti. In mid-March, EuroChem’s Nevinnomysskiy Azot site will begin preparations for commissioning works on a new production facility with a capacity of at least 70,000 tonnes per year.

With a total investment of 7.4 billion rubles (US$81 million), the new facility is expected to start production of mostly water-soluble fertilizers – such as potassium nitrate (NOP) – in the third quarter of 2024, said Oleg Shiryaev, President of EuroChem Group.

“The launch of the new project in Nevinnomyssk will further develop our water-soluble fertilizer capacity, which is important to the application of advanced agricultural technologies. The market for these products is consistently high here in Russia, as well as in Asia, Central and South America. I am confident that the new products from Nevinnomyssk will meet both domestic and global customer demand,” added Shiryaev.

The project will also increase EuroChem’s global production footprint, allowing the company to significantly grow its market share in Brazil, where it plans to supply up to 60 per cent of the new plant’s products.

According to Alexey Rezvanov, editor-in-chief of the Fertilizer Daily web portal, EuroChem’s export-oriented project is being launched “in a very timely manner, in view of the needs of growing markets”.

“The project will maximize the use of the company’s own distribution networks in Brazil and other countries, giving it a clear advantage over its competitors, especially so due its significant production output and supply of potassium nitrate to the Russian market,” he told RIA Novosti.

“Potassium nitrate (NOP) is one of the most in-demand types of mineral fertilizers. This highly effective source of nitrogen and potassium for a range of plants is, thanks to its properties, used primarily in greenhouse farms, which are now actively becoming more and more important,” Rezvanov added.