Shift Saves Florida P Production Plants

OMAHA (DTN) -- Hurricane Milton hit Florida's Gulf Coast Wednesday evening as a Category 3 storm. Weather forecasts earlier in the week had the hurricane going right through the Tampa area, which is home to several phosphorus (P) production facilities.

Milton came onto land further south and away from these plants, where much phosphorus is mined and processed. While there could be some supply issues in the coming weeks, the fact that these facilities were spared a direct hit from a hurricane is good news for the fertilizer industry, according to one analyst.

SHIFT SOUTH SAVED P PRODUCTION

Josh Linville, vice president of fertilizer for StoneX, told DTN Hurricane Milton's last-second shift south probably saved much of the P production facilities. While horrible for the people in the path of the hurricane, it was good news for farmers getting ready to apply P fertilizer in the coming weeks after harvest.

"So far, we have not heard anything definitive regarding phosphate in the area," Linville told DTN. "Many of the peripheral stories lead us to believe that major damage was narrowly missed, but again we do not know this for sure."

DTN Ag Meteorologist John Baranick said Hurricane Milton came ashore south of Tampa near Siesta Key as a weakening Category 3 storm. Just because it was weakening doesn't mean it didn't produce a lot of damage, he said.

Winds at landfall were 120 mph and the storm wrapped a cold front behind it, which caused stronger winds to blow through on its backside. These winds were seen in the Tampa area and ripped off the roof to Tropicana Field where wind gusts of up to 100 mph were recorded, he said.

Winds quickly diminished as Milton worked east across the peninsula, but the storm was still a Category 1 hurricane when it entered the Atlantic Thursday morning.

Baranick said rain was intense on the north side of the storm, producing a long swath of more than eight inches from Tampa Bay to Daytona Beach.

"Some areas saw way more than that," Baranick said. "St. Petersburg recorded 18.54" of rain and Tampa recorded 11.43".

To go along with the direct damage from the hurricane, the storm also produced 38 tornadoes, mostly on the central Atlantic coast from West Palm Beach up to Daytona Beach, he said.

STILL COULD SEE SOME P SUPPLY ISSUES

Despite this good news, there will still be some P supply issues caused by Hurricane Milton.

Linville said it would not be surprising to see production offline at these facilities for at least a couple weeks.

There is a lot of clean-up, rebuilding, etc., in residential areas that might keep workers from returning immediately to these facilities. Regardless of whether production is being lost to facility damage or from a lack of work force, production is being lost, Linville said.

This is not good news for P fertilizers, which are already in a tightly supplied marketplace, he added.

DTN tracks retail fertilizer prices and our data reveals the lack of supply in the P fertilizer market is causing prices to move higher (https://www.dtnpf.com/…).

Last week both DAP and MAP were higher compared to last year at the same -- the only fertilizers that were more expensive. MAP was 5% more expensive while DAP was 2% higher looking back a year. DAP had an average price of $736/ton while MAP is at $805/ton.

DTN wrote about the possibility of Hurricane Milton affecting Florida's P production facilities earlier this week (https://www.dtnpf.com/…).

Russ Quinn can be reached at Russ.Quinn@dtn.com

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