UPDATE 1-Nutrien expects Canpotex facility in Portland back online by year's end
(Adds details on exports from Russia and Belarus)
By Tom Polansek
CHICAGO, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Nutrien, the world's biggest fertilizer producer, on Thursday said it expects a Canpotex facility in Portland, Oregon, to be back online by the end of the year after suffering an outage.
Canpotex, a Canadian potash marketer owned by Nutrien and Mosaic, should have full export capacity through its terminals in 2024, Nutrien said on a quarterly earnings call. A failure on a conveyor at the Portland terminal curtailed potash loadings this spring.
Potash prices have been falling globally since shipments from Belarus and Russia resumed. These exports had been significantly restricted last year.
While Russian exports of food and fertilizer are not subject to Western sanctions imposed after Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has said that restrictions on payments, logistics and insurance have hindered shipments.
Still, Nutrien CEO Ken Seitz said fertilizer shipments this year are on the high end of what had been expected.
"Those volumes are at the top end of what we saw coming out of the region this year," Seitz said on the call. "We've seen volumes going into China via rail from Belarus."
Nutrien predicts that potash exports from Belarus will be down about 4 million tonnes from 2021 levels and Russian exports will be down about 2 million tonnes from 2021. The company in August had forecast that Russia's exports would be down 3 million-4 million tonnes from 2021 and exports from Belarus would be down 4 million-5 million tonnes.
Nutrien expects volumes to continue to increase from Russia in 2024, with about 1 million tonnes of additional supply, said Jason Newton, the company's chief economist. Significant increases in Belarussian volumes are not expected next year, he said.
Some new planned potash production in the former Soviet Union has been delayed by years, Nutrien said. (Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Mark Porter)
