Brazil faces high costs and problems in purchasing fertilizers for agricultural production. The product accounts for up to a third of the operating cost of soy and corn. A Nitrogen Fertilizer Unit III (UFN3), which has been turning to scrap for seven years, located in Três Lagoas, could supply at least part of this demand. The projection is that the billion-dollar industrial unit would have a production capacity of 3,600 tons of urea and 2,200 tons of ammonia a day and could at least meet part of the country’s demand. UFN3 has been abandoned since 2014. The factory’s main raw material is natural gas coming from the neighboring country. It was part of a consortium made up of Galvão Engenharia, Sinopec (Chinese state-owned) and Petrobras, budgeted at R$3.9 billion. With the appreciation of the exchange rate, the increase in international freight prices and the scarcity of raw materials, the price of the main fertilizers used in Brazilian agriculture has risen sharply and has directly impacted the country’s agricultural production costs.
Sources: Correiodoestado/Global Fert (*Translated by Ia Niani)