CSBP mothballs superphosphate manufacturing plant amid nickel industry turmoil and live export ban plans

WA industrial giant CSBP has mothballed its superphosphate factory on the back of the State’s nickel industry collapse and declining demand for pasture fertiliser ahead of Labor’s live sheep export ban.

CSBP general manager Ryan Lamp said the Kwinana plant — on which the Wesfarmers-owned company’s growth was founded — had been under close watch as farmers moved away from livestock.

He said this factor was amplified by increasing competition from international suppliers and rising operational and raw material costs, in particular for sulfuric acid, a crucial ingredient in superphosphate.

The company has pledged to “work closely with” a “small number” of affected staff, to provide redeployment opportunities, career advice, job search and counselling support as it transitions to care and maintenance “in coming months”.

Mr Lamp said CSBP’s granulation and liquid fertiliser plants would remain open and there was still potential for the factory to reopen if “market conditions changed”.

“We will continue to support WA growers by importing SSP, and repurposing the facility to increase CSBP’s storage capacity will enable us to offer greater supply reliability across our solid fertiliser products,” he said.

“Fertilisers, such as Flexi-N, will still be manufactured at our Kwinana, Esperance, and Geraldton facilities, as well as cropping fertilisers in our Kwinana granulation plant.”

Superphosphate was once the most widely used fertiliser in WA at more than one million tonnes a year.

But its dominance has fallen with the shift over several decades away from sheep towards cropping, which requires more concentrated and nitrogen-based fertilisers.

Mr Lamp said the cost of raw material inputs to domestic SSP production had increased significantly as a result of production curtailments in the WA nickel industry, which is facing a global oversupply, low prices and increased production costs.

“Until recently, sulfuric acid, which is a critical input to the SSP production process, was supplied to the WA market as a by-product of the nickel refining process,” he said.

“The cost of securing imported acid has adversely affected the plant’s production costs, while market demand for SSP has declined.”

ASX-listed Incitec Pivot also plans to close its Geelong superphosphate manufacturing plant by the end of the year due to unsustainable input costs and competition from cheaper, imported products.