Sail across the sea

Chapter 483 Triple Superphosphate

Fanjiawan Phosphate Mine, Linji City, Muyang Province.

Amidst fluttering flags and resounding drums, the commissioning ceremony for the first phase of the Fanjiawan Mining and Fertilizer Integration Project, with a total investment of 17 billion yuan and a designed annual production capacity of 62 tons of superphosphate, 25 tons of phosphoric acid, and 2 tons of aluminum fluoride, is about to begin.

Guests from the central government and all over the country arrived one after another, and a large open space was filled with various buses, minibuses, cars and jeeps. Greetings, pleasantries and words of encouragement were heard everywhere.

Standing on high ground, one can see a steel jungle of various tanks, pipes, supports, pumps, and valves stretching from the national highway all the way to the open-pit mine in the distance, extending for more than ten miles and seemingly endless. According to on-site personnel, this is only the first phase of the project, with second and third phases planned for the future. The long-term goal is to achieve an output value of over 10 billion yuan and sell products globally.

Upon closer inspection, the nameplates on various pieces of equipment were clearly visible in different languages, including English, Japanese, German, French, and Spanish. Some of these languages ​​were so obscure that even the well-informed Gao Fan couldn't immediately identify them. This demonstrates that the project drew upon a wide range of resources, leveraging the expertise of many Western countries.

Fanjiawan Phosphate Mine is one of the largest phosphate mines in China. Its mining history dates back to the early 50s, and it has been operating for nearly 40 years, forming an annual production capacity of 100 million tons of phosphate ore.

Previously, Fanjiawan Phosphate Mine was just a simple mine; the extracted ore was transported to various places for the production of various phosphate chemical products.

Phosphate rock prices have always been very low. In the 6s and 70s, the price of phosphate rock was less than 30 yuan per ton. Later, the price rose somewhat, reaching about 100 yuan per ton in the late 80s. Even so, Fanjiawan produced 1 million tons of ore a year, but the output value was only a mere 100 million yuan, making a very limited contribution to local tax revenue.

In recent years, with the gradual deepening of reforms, the state has repeatedly delegated power to local governments, which has continuously increased their enthusiasm for developing the economy. All regions are striving to find new economic growth points, simply put, they flock to do whatever makes money.

The Fanjiawan phosphate mine, a super-large mine that ranks among the top in the country, naturally came into the view of the leaders of Muyang Province. Everyone was thinking about how to turn this large mine into a treasure trove.

Several years ago, the Ministry of Chemical Industry proposed a strategic vision for the development of the phosphorus chemical industry: "integration of mining and fertilizer, integration of mining and acid, and deep processing of phosphorus products." The Muyang Provincial Planning Commission astutely seized this opportunity and submitted a plan to the State Planning Commission to construct the Fanjiawan Mining-Fertilizer Integration Project. After several twists and turns, the plan was finally approved, and the mining-fertilizer project broke ground immediately, with the first phase recently completed.

According to calculations by the Muyang Provincial Planning Commission, after the mining and fertilizer project is put into operation, the annual revenue from the sale of superphosphate alone will reach more than 5 million yuan, with profits and taxes exceeding 2 million yuan, far exceeding the previous revenue from mining alone.

Of course, when the Muyang Provincial Planning Commission submitted the plan to the State Planning Commission, it emphasized that it could provide high-quality fertilizer for agricultural production, increase the country's grain production by more than 20 billion kilograms per year, and save hundreds of millions of US dollars in foreign exchange needed for imported phosphate fertilizer.

They would never admit that their initial motivation was simply the high profits this project could generate.

China began using phosphate fertilizers in agricultural production as early as the 50s. Initially, phosphate rock powder was applied directly. In 1958, the production of superphosphate, commonly known as "ordinary superphosphate," began. The production process of ordinary superphosphate is simple and has low requirements for the quality of phosphate rock, so it quickly became popular throughout the country. Enterprises producing ordinary superphosphate were established in every province, and at its peak, there were as many as 400 ordinary superphosphate plants, accounting for 50% of the total phosphate fertilizer production.

Besides ordinary calcium superphosphate (CSS), another widely used fertilizer is calcium magnesium phosphate (MgMg), which also started production in the 50s and has about 100 production enterprises, accounting for about 10% of the total output of phosphate fertilizers. The main drawback of both ordinary calcium superphosphate and calcium magnesium phosphate is their low fertilizer efficiency. For example, the effective ingredient in ordinary calcium superphosphate, namely phosphorus pentoxide, generally accounts for only 12-20%, which is a low-concentration fertilizer.

In 1966, my country built its first plant with an annual production capacity of 3 tons of diammonium phosphate; in 1976, it built its first plant using the thermal phosphoric acid process for superphosphate. The completion of these two plants meant that my country had mastered the production technology of two types of high-concentration phosphate fertilizers: diammonium phosphate and superphosphate.

In the 80s, the country introduced a large number of large and medium-sized high-concentration phosphate fertilizer production facilities, which led to a rapid increase in phosphate fertilizer production. However, at the same time, due to the influence of the rural household contract responsibility system, farmers' demand for chemical fertilizers was also increasing rapidly, and the supply-demand contradiction had not been effectively resolved.

For a long time, domestic fertilizer production could not meet the needs of agricultural production, and the country had to rely on imports to fill the gap. A large portion of the foreign exchange earned by the country through the export of resource products such as oil and rare earths went into filling this hole.

Of course, the purpose of filling the fertilizer gap is still to feed 10 billion Chinese people. Food is the most important thing for the people.

Initially, the largest shortage of fertilizers was in nitrogen fertilizer, especially urea. Studies have shown that the yield-increasing effect of phosphate fertilizer depends on the availability of nitrogen fertilizer; simply increasing phosphate fertilizer will have no effect when nitrogen fertilizer is insufficient.

Starting in the mid-60s, the country first vigorously developed small-scale nitrogen fertilizer plants, then introduced more than a dozen large-scale synthetic ammonia and urea plants. In the 80s, a comprehensive technological transformation of small-scale nitrogen fertilizer plants was launched, especially the promotion of ammonium-to-urea conversion technology. With the combination of various measures, the tight supply of nitrogen fertilizer in China was greatly alleviated.

After the nitrogen fertilizer problem was solved, the phosphate fertilizer problem became prominent. In the late 80s, China's phosphate fertilizer self-sufficiency rate was only 70%, and the annual import of phosphate fertilizer, calculated by pure quantity, was between 200 and 300 million tons, with a physical quantity of about 600 million tons, resulting in foreign exchange expenditures of US$10 billion.

Of course, compared to the situation with potash fertilizer, it's nothing. In 1990, China's potash fertilizer self-sufficiency rate was only 2%, and the imports of potash fertilizer that year, calculated based on the purity of potassium oxide, amounted to 166 million tons, while domestic production was only 3.7 tons.

Where there is a shortage, there is a business opportunity. There is a shortage of several million tons of phosphate fertilizer in China, and Fanjiawan is one of the few large phosphate mines in the country. Naturally, officials in Muyang Province thought of building a large-scale phosphate fertilizer project there.

Building a large-scale phosphate fertilizer plant requires a large number of large-scale equipment, including various acid-resistant pumps, circulating pumps, hot and cold air blowers, speed reducers, mixers, filters, coolers, spray kilns, vibrating screens, etc., a considerable portion of which cannot be manufactured domestically and must be imported from abroad.

The Muyang Planning Commission applied to the State Planning Commission for a foreign exchange quota, citing the Fanjiawan phosphate fertilizer project as a potential import substitute, and then embarked on a massive global procurement campaign. Countless funds were spent like flowing water, transforming into the steel city that Gao Fan now sees.

"The budget was 17 billion yuan, but the actual investment was 23 billion yuan. It's a real money-sucking beast."

Hu Dongming, director of the Comprehensive Division of the Provincial Department of Finance, stood with Gao Fan on the periphery of the celebration site and said with emotion.

(End of this chapter)