Supply and demand for phosphate rock and phosacid in 2012 Q1

Global supply of phosphates has been more than sufficient to satisfy demand during the quarter, due to massive Chinese exports during the second half of 2011, and improved utilization rates at the new Maaden plant in Saudi Arabia. DAP prices dropped from around USD 550 per ton fob US Gulf at the start of the quarter to end the quarter at USD 500 per ton, and several key producers curtailed production as a result. However, demand improved during the quarter, paving the way for higher utilization rates going into the second quarter. Phosphoric acid and phosphate rock prices have been adjusted down as a consequence of lower DAP prices, but decreasing proportionally less than DAP. Average upgrading margins from rock to DAP were almost halved compared with first quarter 2011, and all the remaining value is now in the upgrading from phosphate rock to phosphoric acid. Although phosphate prices have declined since the third quarter of 2011, the average first quarter phosphate rock price fob Morocco exceeded same quarter last year by 25%.

Galvani - Luís Eduardo Magalhães BA

Piney Point, near Bishop Harbor, Florida (now Mosaic)

Phosphate Rock - World Demand and Production

Mozambique Coal

Mozambique has substantial coal deposits situated in the Moatize and Mucanha - Vuzi coal basins in the Tete province. The basin contains seven coal seams and has reserves estimated at 750 Million ton (Mt). The Mucanha – Vuzi basin is said to contain as much as 3 600 Mt coal reserves, although the basin is severely block faulted.
Brazilian company Vale has so far spent US$3 billion development of the Moatize coal mine in Mozambique and expects to started production from it in late 2011. Full production from the Moatize mine in terms of Phase One is planned at 12.7 million tonnes annually of hard coking coal for export; 2.4mt/year of export thermal coal and 2.5mt/year of thermal coal to supply a local power station should one be built.
Riversdale Mining Limited is involved in the Benga coal project in Mozambique. The project is a joint venture between Riversdale (65%) and Tata Steel Limited (35%) and is located in the Tete Province of Mozambique. Coal resources of 4.0 billion tonnes and a coal reserve of 502 million tones have been identified. Construction of Stage 1 has commenced and is expected to be completed in the second half of 2011.
The Zambeze Project, adjacent to the Benga Coal Project, has an identified coal resource of 9 billion tonnes. The Zambeze Project is similar in structure to Benga with 22 coal seams outcropping over strike length of 14 kilometres across the northern portion of the tenement. In June 2010 Riversdale signed a non-bonding MoU with Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation and a logistics partnership agreement with the China Communications Construction Company for the development of the Zambeze Project.
Mozambi Coal has a 70% interest in two mineral exploration licences situated in the Zambeze coal basin. In July 2011 the company announced an agreement to acquire an 80% interest in a third exploration licence, 2738L (“Songo” project), also within the Zambeze coal basin, an emerging and highly prospective coal region that is within economic reach of the East African coast.

Coal gasification

Coal has been used since the industrial revolution but only in the last 100 years have huge quantities of oil and gas been removed from underground reservoirs.
Oil and gas are used as fuel energy in combustion engines and as "feed stock" for other industries — raw materials for the manufacture of other chemicals, such as plastics and agricultural fertilizer.
There is a limited amount of fossil fuel. It is not "renewable" and there is no known way to make more.
The energy stored in oil is significantly greater than in any other currently available source. Data should be checked, but I found that we the Earth have 10exp11 ton of oil and 10exp10 ton of oil equivalent of coal.

There is no other equivalently cheap and powerful energy available from nuclear energy, natural gas, solar power, wind power, hydrogen or biomass.
So will need to develop coal gasification (a way of transforming solid coal in gases and afterwads in liquids), for example, to produce valualbe Ammonia and Urea (nitrogen fertilizers). It was the case for Germany in the ninetenth century, South Africa in the apartheid and there is a boom in China now.
But burning coal produces CO2, a greenhouse effect gas...Coal technology must be greener!