While the next exports planned between now and the end of the year are destined for Great Britain, Brazil and Indonesia in September, other cargoes to Spain and Turkey as well as Senegal are on the program. Which would make a total of more than 350 thousand tonnes exported. A figure that has not been reached since 2012, with the return of traditional markets and the opening of new markets.
This is good news for the Tunisian economy in search of diversification of foreign exchange sources. Phosphate production is picking up again and exports are increasing day after day. Long considered the third lung of the economy, the phosphate sector has been penalized by a clear regression with endless strikes and at the heart of a continually tense social climate. A situation which has benefited Tunisia’s competitors, notably Morocco, having increased its exports in recent years.
Today, the quantities of phosphate exported are increasing considerably following the resumption of a sustained rate of production. Indeed, exports from the mining, phosphates and derivatives sectors recorded an increase of 37.5% at the end of August 2023, compared to the same period of 2022, according to figures recently published by the National Institute of statistics (INS). Likewise, these figures show that exports of various manufacturing industries and those of agricultural and agri-food industries also increased by 12.5% and 3.9% respectively.
The Gafsa Phosphate Company (CPG) continues to score points and to record good export performances to old and new markets in recent months. Thus, the CPG managed to export 158 thousand tons of commercial phosphate until the end of July to different countries such as Italy, Spain, Peru, Turkey and France.
While the next exports planned between now and the end of the year are destined for Great Britain, Brazil and Indonesia in September, other cargoes to Spain and Turkey as well as the Senegal are on the program. Which would make a total of more than 350 thousand tonnes exported. A figure that has not been reached since 2012, with the return of traditional markets and the opening of new markets such as those of Peru, Indonesia, Great Britain and Spain.
Increase in international demand
But how can we explain the recovery of this sector, which highly generates foreign exchange and revenue for the State after a decade marked by production that was desperately at a standstill?
Economist Ali Sanhaji explains that in addition to the clear improvement in the social climate in the mining basin, this remarkable recovery in phosphate exports is due to an increase in international demand. This is also linked to the modernization of automatic loading operations for transport wagons. “Phosphate could generate revenues of around $2 billion per year, the same value as the loan that Tunisia plans to obtain from the International Monetary Fund,” he noted to La Presse. And to add that the resumption of phosphate production would require the resumption of work in all the production zones of the mining region and the eradication of the demonstrations which had led to the cessation of activity in several zones over the last years.
Suffice it to say also that a program to modernize the capacities of the company in question, which cost some 110 million dinars, had a positive impact on its productivity.
Towards hydraulic transport
If these inflows of money are paid into the coffers of the State in crisis, they must be reinforced by effective measures to meet an increasingly growing international demand. The improvement in phosphate transport operations by rail, as highlighted by the President of the Republic during a National Security Council, explains this increase in exports. However, further modernization of these transport methods would increase the profitability of this sector. It is in this context that the CPG and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, recently signed an agreement to finance a study relating to an integrated hydraulic transport project for commercial phosphate .
It also includes a network of pipelines and structures to ensure the hydraulic transport of phosphate from the assembly site in Métlaoui to the CPG factories in Gabès and Skhira, with an annual supply capacity of approximately 10 million tonnes of commercial phosphate.
What is phosphate used for?
But what is this material actually used for? Phosphate is mainly used as a raw material in the manufacture of phosphoric acid, mineral fertilizers and other phosphate derivatives. It is also used in the pharmaceutical and other chemical industries, but agriculture remains its main use.
Except that Tunisian phosphates have unique qualities in the world. Gafsa phosphate, which is intended for direct application, has the exceptional power to fertilize the plant by direct spreading with a very good yield. Its specific qualities are reactivity, tenderness, specific surface area, solubility as well as its rapid assimilation by plants.
The natural phosphate from the Gafsa mining basin is of the sedimentary type. It is a carbonate fluoroapatite which has its source in deposits on the seabed, generally formed in shallow coastal areas. Tunisia is an international pioneer in the field of natural phosphate and mineral fertilizers. This activity dates back more than a century in our country. According to the CPG website, it was in April 1885, during a prospecting in the Metlaoui region, that the French geologist Philippe Thomas discovered powerful layers of calcium phosphates at Jebel Thelja.
Other geological surveys and large-scale explorations followed this decisive discovery. These revealed the existence of significant phosphate deposits in the current mining basin. From 1896, the date of creation of the Gafsa Phosphate and Railway Company, a new phosphate industrial activity emerged in the country. The first excavations began in the Métlaoui region around 1900.
With a century of experience in the exploitation and marketing of Tunisian phosphates, CPG is among the largest producers in the world. Before the revolution, it occupied 5th place on a global scale with production exceeding 8 million tonnes of merchant phosphate in 2007. Question: is the Company on the verge of catching up?
