The first US-bound shipment of Belarusian potash in four years is expected to arrive at a New Orleans port within weeks as Washington pursues a diplomatic opening with Minsk. The Belarusian Potash Company loaded 30,000 tonnes of granular muriate of potash (MOP) on to a Marshall Islands-owned ship at Russia’s Bronka port in St Petersburg on September 15, according to pricing agency Argus. It is expected to offload at a port in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 14, according to ship-tracking data from commodities platform Kpler.
The shipment is the first to be sent to the US since Washington began to ease sanctions on the Belarusian potash industry in December last year as part of a wider deal to secure the release of political prisoners. The US imposed sanctions on the country’s potash industry, one of its principal exports, in 2021 after President Alexander Lukashenko violently cracked down on pro-democracy protests the previous year.
In September, Donald Trump said that the US was working on a “massive deal” to buy the fertiliser from Belarus in a post on social media. Canada accounts for almost 80 per cent of US potash imports. “This shipment serves a few purposes: it acts as a political gesture amid trade tensions between the US and Canada,” said Katsiaryna Shmatsina, Eurasia fellow with the Lawfare Institute.
Analysts remain sceptical that Belarus can rapidly scale up its exports to the US in the near future or compete with Canadian prices. EU sanctions prohibit Belarus from using Lithuania’s Klaipėda port, the fastest route to sea, forcing shipments to take a more expensive and circuitous route from Russia. The shipment of Belarusian potash represents a fraction of the 5.6mn tonnes of potash imported by the US last year.
Source: Financial Times Markets · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing