Latest news with #MosaicCompany
Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
How An Unassuming Geologist Cracked The Global Fertilizer Cartel
The eureka moment came in 2012, when professor emeritus William Harrison of the University of Western Michigan invited Ted Pagano, then a 35-year-old freelance geologist, to his 27,000-square-foot geological repository in Kalamazoo. A rock nerd's heaven, the warehouse's heavy-duty shelves feature crates of minerals from across the state. But Pagano was there to see something specific: the 80 pallets of rock cores donated in 2008 by the Mosaic Company, a large ($11.1 billion in 2024 sales) NYSE-listed potash specialist. Cores are standardized cylinders of rock, three feet long and four inches in diameter. These were recovered from some 75 wells drilled back in the early 1980s to depths 8,000 feet beneath Osceola and Mecosta counties, a sparsely populated swath of central Michigan, into a layer of rock rich in minerals deposited by an ocean that evaporated millions of years ago. Those minerals include salt (sodium chloride) and potash (mostly potassium oxide), which farmers prize as a fertilizer. It's a critical mineral—the U.S. uses 5.3 million tons annually and imports 95% of it, mostly from Canada. jamel toppin for forbes Pagano was excited to see these cores because he hoped they would prove his hunch: that Mosaic had been sitting on a potash motherlode in Michigan far bigger than anyone realized. He suspected that the deposit, if properly developed, could provide 1 million tons of fertilizer per year for American farmers. That would be nearly seven times the volume that Mosaic's little 150,000-ton-per-year plant in Hersey, Michigan, was producing. Putting up $70,000 of his own money, Pagano had formed Michigan Potash & Salt Company and was already leasing up mineral rights from ranchers and farmers in the area. Even so, Pagano says, 'I went to the core lab with skepticism.' Harrison and Pagano cut open sealed plastic bags to extract rock wrapped in newspapers from 1984. Testing revealed thick deposits of some of the highest-purity potash deposits ever discovered. They were especially excited when they opened the cores from a well called Stein 1-7. It had been drilled miles from the area considered the sweet spot, so Pagano thought the odds were high that these cores would show low concentrations of potash. Instead, they were just as good. This was proof that the actual extent of the Michigan potash deposit was considerably larger than even experts like Harrison had expected. Pagano began leasing like crazy: Soon he had a position covering 15,500 acres (about 24 square miles) of what has proven to be one of the biggest potash deposits in the United States. 'I was certain the Stein well would be a poor showing. Seeing it was just as good as the best well was astounding,' says Pagano, now 49. His Michigan Potash is on the cusp of closing on $1.8 billion of financing for a new mine, including a $1.3 billion loan from the Department of Energy and $500 million in equity being arranged by JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. If all goes well, the mine will be churning out 1 million tons per year of potash (worth $350 million) and 1.3 million tons of salt (worth $80 million) by the end of the decade. With a resource base proven to be 130 million tons, they could keep that up for a century or more—and make Pagano, who owns 65%, very rich. Even now his stake is worth at least $300 million. Potash Stash: Core samples extracted from 1.5 miles beneath central Michigan reveal high-purity potassium oxide, marketed as premium 'white potash.' Pagano grew up in Greeley, Colorado, the son of a tax preparer and an assistant librarian. After graduating from Notre Dame in 1997, he earned a master's degree in petroleum engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. He got his start in the oil industry as a roustabout in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, then worked as a geologist for Alaska's Bristol Bay Native Corporation. (He is part Aleut, the indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands.) From there he worked at Texaco, Chevron and Anadarko drilling shale oil wells in Colorado. In 2008, at age 33, he struck out on his own, initially planning to lease prospective oilfields in North Dakota's Bakken shale region, but land prices—which reached thousands of dollars per acre with a 20% royalty and five-year term—were too steep. Looking at other mineral trends in the northern Midwest, Pagano became fascinated with potash and puzzled by Mosaic's little Hersey operation. Why hadn't it expanded?[IMAGE] Despite being based in Florida, Mosaic mines nearly all its potash in Saskatchewan, and sells it via Canpotex (Canadian Potash Exporters) through its 50/50 partnership with Canadian fertilizer giant Nutrien (2024 sales: $26 billion). Canpotex, alongside Belarusalki of Belarus and Russia's Uralki, make up an oligopoly that controls more than 70% of global supply. After exhausting his own funds, Pagano raised $250,000 more from friends and family in exchange for 13% of his company. Since then, the only outside money Michigan Potash has taken is a $50 million grant from Michigan's state agriculture department in 2023 and a new $80 million grant from the USDA, crucial to getting through permitting. When Pagano initially approached the U.S. Department of Energy for funding in 2021, he got the cold shoulder. Michigan Potash was tiny and unproven. But he and his team persisted—and in 2025, as the war in Ukraine dragged on, the DOE agreed to a 15-year, $1.3 billion loan. But it came with conditions: Pagano must raise $500 million in equity, and to reduce risk Michigan Potash will outsource construction under a lump-sum, turnkey contract. 'Now [the DOE] look like geniuses,' says Cory Christofferson, Michigan Potash's chief development officer. Illustration by Patrick Welsh for forbes By William Baldwin What if we run short of potassium or phosphorus? That would be bad news for farmers and, by extension, the human race. It's an element—two elements—of the coming environmental doom postulated by the accomplished, but perhaps too pessimistic, money manager Jeremy Grantham. If you share his pessimism, it would make sense to acquire a stake in a potash and phosphate producer. Two of the big ones are Nutrien and Mosaic, both trading on the Big Board and both paying above-market yields. They are priced, respectively, at 23 and 19 times what Value Line sees for earnings this year. William Baldwin is Forbes' Investment Strategies columnist. To extract the potash, Pagano will use a form of 'in-situ,' or solution mining. He'll drill 8,000-foot-deep wells in pairs. One is the injection well, down which Michigan Potash will send hot water to dissolve potash and salt in place. The second is the production well; the solution travels up that well to the processing plant for separation and drying. The water is reclaimed, heated and sent back down the hole. From the surface the mine will hardly be noticeable and should be eligible for green tax credits. 'There's no hair on this project that we're ashamed of,' says chief operating officer Aric Glasser. In all, Forbes estimates that costs should come to about $140 per ton; potash sells for about $350 a ton today. Global giant Mosaic can produce potash for less—about $80 a ton—but Midwestern farmers are still on the hook for another $80 per ton in rail shipping costs from Saskatchewan, 1,200 miles away, plus any tariffs that President Trump might choose to impose (currently 10% on Canadian potash). Agricultural giant ADM has already agreed to buy nearly all of Pagano's yearly potash production. Mosaic rejected Pagano's offers to buy some or all of its remaining Hersey plant and, citing high costs, shut down its potash operation there in 2013. It sold the remaining salt processing operation to Cargill for $55 million. 'They thought they didn't have to worry about competition,' Christofferson says. Vladimir Putin's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine changed that thinking. The EU banned the import or even transit of Russian and Belarussian fertilizers. China banned potash exports to conserve supply for its domestic market. Prices soared to $1,200 per ton. To keep a lid on costs, neither President Biden nor Trump has banned or sanctioned imported Russian potash. Every ton Pagano can supply domestically should make more potash available outside the U.S. in international markets including sub-Saharan Africa, whose farmers desperately need fertilizer. 'It takes a crisis to wake people up out of complacency,' Pagano says. And it takes an intrepid contrarian to challenge an oligopoly.
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Is The Mosaic Company (MOS) the Best Agriculture Stock to Buy Right Now?
We recently published a list of . In this article, we are going to take a look at where The Mosaic Company (NYSE:MOS) stands against other best agriculture stocks to buy now. On April 28, CNBC reported that while other US sectors are nearing what President Trump's Treasury secretary Scott Bessent calls 'an unsustainable tariff war', the American farming sector has started to bear the effects of the economic crisis, with the damage already done. American agricultural exporters believe that the global backlash to tariffs imposed by Trump is punishing them, especially through a decrease in Chinese purchasing of US products. This trend is resulting in canceled export orders and layoffs. Data from the US Department of Agriculture shows that China canceled its biggest pork orders since 2020, stopping the shipment of 12,000 tons of pork. CNBC reported that Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition (AgTC), a leading export trade group for farmers, opined that calling the number of canceled orders of US agricultural products could not be called 'approaching a crisis', as 'it is a full-blown crisis already.' AgTC also reported that its members are experiencing 'massive' financial losses because of the trade war, based on the reports sent by member companies. A wood pulp and paperboard reported to AgTC the hold or immediate cancellation of 6,400 metric tons in a warehouse. It said that 9,000 metric tons of the product are already on their way to China through water, with the estimated arrival time being May 13. Chinese buyers may refuse to accept these shipments and abandon them at the port, which is why the threat of costly diversion to Chinese or other bonded warehouses looms over the journey. READ ALSO: and 11 Most Promising Future Stocks According to Hedge Funds. China-to-US vessel traffic has also seen a steep decline. CNBC reported that according to the Vizion Global Ocean Bookings Tracker, the traffic is down 22.15% week-over-week and 44% year-over-year through April 14. Ben Tracy, Vizion's vice president of strategic business development, said the following about the situation: 'What we've seen in the last two weeks is a continued correction in booking demand for US imports, especially US imports from China. We are now seeing this translate to a drop in departures as well.' Agricultural exporters opined that no other global markets hold the potential to swiftly replace China's demand and absorb the volume. These trends are already affecting operations and prices. CNBC reported that a lumber exporter told AgTC that some products have already fallen 20% in market value, which will likely impact future investments and inventory planning. 'The U.S. market was stable and improving, but now awash with inventory of former China products,' it said. 'We have diverted employees and production to other (less profitable) production and dramatically slowed down purchasing from independent vendors (loggers, truckers, sawmills).' We sifted through stock screeners, financial media reports, and ETFs to compile a list of 30 agriculture stocks and chose the top 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds. We sourced the hedge fund sentiment data from Insider Monkey's database. The list is ordered in ascending order of the number of hedge funds as of fiscal Q4 2024. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (). A farmer tending to his crops in a field, with a fertiliser bag Mosaic Company (NYSE:MOS) is the fourth-best agriculture stock to invest in now. It produces and markets concentrated phosphate and potash crop nutrients. The company's operations are divided into the Phosphates, Potash, and Mosaic Fertilizantes segments. The Phosphates segment produces concentrated phosphate crop nutrients and phosphate-based animal feed ingredients. The Mosaic Fertilizantes segment manages mines, chemical plants, port terminals, crop nutrient blending and bagging facilities, and warehouses. On April 22, Barclays analyst Benjamin Theurer maintained a Buy rating on The Mosaic Company (NYSE:MOS) and set a price target of $33.00. Due to improved agriculture markets, the company expects constructive agriculture and fertilizer fundamentals in 2025 and is also making operational progress. The Mosaic Company's (NYSE:MOS) fiscal Q1 2025 market performance showed strong fertilizer market fundamentals, with net income of $238 million and adjusted EBITDA reaching $544 million. Substantial operating efficiency gains in fiscal Q1 2025 are expected to drive sequential segment adjusted EBITDA growth in fiscal Q2 2025. The raised potash production volume outlook for 2025 reflects strong international demand and robust prices, so management expects around 15% growth in Mosaic Fertilizantes sales volumes in 2025. Overall, MOS ranks 4th on our list of best agriculture stocks to buy according to hedge funds. While we acknowledge the potential for MOS as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than MOS but trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Associated Press
14-04-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Mosaic Biosciences Receives National Agri-Marketing Award
TAMPA, FL / ACCESS Newswire / April 14, 2025 / The Mosaic Company (NYSE:MOS) is making great strides in its strategy to redefine growth and is pleased to announce that Mosaic Biosciences' Frontier Fields series (Season 1) took home the top national award in the Digital Content category at the National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) Awards. The Frontier Fields series follows six Midwest farmers using BioPath® and PowerCoat™ and shares their authentic experience through the crop season. Mosaic was up against many of the largest names in the agricultural sector for this competitive award. 'The National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) Awards are the most prestigious recognition of excellence in agriculture marketing, and I am incredibly proud of this accomplishment - it was no small feat.' said Jenny Wang, Executive Vice President, Commercial. 'With over 1.7 million views and 5.9 million minutes of total watch time, this award validates our effort in addressing the barriers to biological adoption among growers and our commitment to transparency. Farmers trust other farmers - and that insight is what sparked this project.' With MicroEssentials ranked #1 in earned media, Mosaic has already established itself as a trusted name among growers. The company will continue investing in marketing and go-to-market channels to build on that success and strengthen the Mosaic Biosciences brand. About The Mosaic Company The Mosaic Company is one of the world's leading producers and marketers of concentrated phosphate and potash crop nutrients. Through its Mosaic Biosciences platform, the company is also advancing the next generation biological solutions to help farmers improve nutrient use efficiency and crop performance sustainably. Mosaic provides a single-source supply of phosphate, potash, and biological products for the global agriculture industry. More information on the company is available at Contacts: SOURCE: The Mosaic Company press release
Associated Press
27-02-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Mosaic Announces Fourth Quarter 2024 Results
TAMPA, FL / ACCESS Newswire / February 27, 2025 / The Mosaic Company (NYSE:MOS) released its financial results for fourth quarter 2024. The company's earnings release and supplemental materials are available at Mosaic will present a fireside chat addressing investor questions during a conference call on Friday, February 28th at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time, accessible both through Mosaic's website at and the dial in numbers below. The webcast will be available up to at least one year from today's date. Conference Call Details: Link to Webcast of the Conference Call: About The Mosaic Company The Mosaic Company is one of the world's leading producers and marketers of concentrated phosphate and potash crop nutrients. Mosaic is a single source provider of phosphates and potash fertilizers and feed ingredients for the global agriculture industry. More information on the company is available at Contacts: The Mosaic Company
Associated Press
04-02-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
The Mosaic Company to Host 2025 Analyst Day
TAMPA, FL / ACCESS Newswire / February 4, 2025 / The Mosaic Company (NYSE:MOS) will host an Analyst Day on Tuesday, March 18, 2025 in New York City. Members of executive management will present the company's business performance, outlook, and strategic and capital allocation priorities. In-person attendance is reserved for institutional investors and sell-side analysts. Presentations will begin at 9:30 a.m. ET and will be accessible from > Events & Presentations. About The Mosaic Company The Mosaic Company is one of the world's leading producers and marketers of concentrated phosphate and potash crop nutrients. Mosaic is a single source provider of phosphate and potash fertilizers and feed ingredients for the global agriculture industry. More information on the company is available at
