The value of exports from the phosphates and derivatives sector reached 100 billion dirhams (MMDH) at the end of last October, up 63%, compared to 47.8% a year earlier, according to the Department of Financial Studies and Forecasts (DEPF) under the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
“These exports have thus exceeded, for the first time, the 100 billion dirhams mark”, indicates the DEPF in its note on the situation for the month of November 2022, stressing that this performance follows the strengthening of shipments of phosphate derivatives of 63, 9% (following +52.8%) and rock phosphate by 56.1%, (following +18%), particularly under a price effect.
For its part, the extractive sector production index continued to decline in the third quarter of 2022, recording a drop of 19% following -15.6% in Q2-2022 and -10.1% in Q1-2022. The trend in the third quarter is explained by the decline in the production index of miscellaneous extractive industry products by 19.7%, offset by a rise in that of metal ores by 1.9%.
At the end of the first nine months of 2022, the extractive sector production index fell by an average of 14.9%, compared to an increase of 3.6% a year earlier. At the same time, rock phosphate production fell by 16.1% at the end of September 2022, following an increase of 3.3% last year.
The drop recorded in the production of phosphates and derivatives is linked, in part, to the drop in the volume of international demand for these products, in a context of supply impacted by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the drop in Chinese exports. This situation would have generated a sharp rise in the prices of these products.
This general increase in the price of phosphate products and derivatives remains significant compared to the prices observed the previous year, despite a slowdown in the rise in the price of phosphate derivatives in the third quarter of 2022, under the effect of a significant drop in the price of sulfur.
The significant price increase more than offset the decline in demand, in volume allowing the turnover of the OCP group to reach 89.5 billion dirhams at the end of the first nine months of 2022, up 55%. This increase is due to the increase in turnover of rock by 74% and that of fertilizers by 68%.
