The Mosaic Company, one of the world’s leading producers of concentrated phosphate and potash crop nutrients, announced that it closes its idled Plant City phosphates manufacturing facility in Hillsborough County, Florida. The final closure of the facility may take several years, making Mosaic employees responsible for successful management of maintenance activities. The facility has been in operation from 1975 until 2017, producing around 1.3 million tonnes of finished phosphates in the last year of its functioning.
In 2017, the facility was idled because of higher cost phosphates facilities in Mosaic’s Florida Operations and global phosphate market conditions. “Our decision to close the Plant City phosphate facility reaffirms our commitment to low-cost operation,” said Joc O’Rourke, Mosaic President and CEO, and added that “we will continue to meet global demand for high-quality phosphate fertilizers with production from our low-cost facilities in Florida, Louisiana, Brazil and Peru, and through our joint venture in Saudi Arabia.”
Mosaic expects a charge up of notable $390 million from no-cash asset write-offs and an increase of the asset retirement obligation liability. While estimated costs of closing the plant are to be similar to the payments while the facility was idle in 2018,the company aims to come up with innovative approaches like water management or reusing of some parts of the facility to decrease the costs.
