Affected by factors such as the increasing attention of countries to food production, the price of potash fertilizer represented by potassium chloride will end the downturn of more than 10 years in 2022 and start the boom cycle. It can be seen from the recent performance forecast disclosed by listed companies involved in potash fertilizer production in the A-share market that relevant companies have fully benefited from the rising prosperity of the industry, and the lower limit of the year-on-year growth of net profit during the reporting period has exceeded 1 times. Among them, Salt Lake, which ranks first in domestic potassium chloride production capacity, is expected to earn more than 15 billion yuan in 2022, with a year-on-year increase of more than 2 times; Potash Asia International expects that the non-net profit deduction in 2022 will increase by more than 5 times year-on-year. What is the outlook for potash fertilizer in 2023? Recently, several securities companies said in a research report that because of the uneven distribution of potassium resources and the uncertainty of the export of potash fertilizer from Belarus and Russia, the duration of the potash fertilizer boom cycle may exceed expectations. Product volume and price rise together to drive performance From the performance forecast disclosed by the major potash fertilizer leaders, the volume and price of potassium chloride products will rise in 2022, which is the main reason for the sharp rise in performance. With the resources and scale advantages of "potassium chloride and lithium carbonate in the first hand", Salt Lake shares achieved outstanding results in 2022. The company expects that the net profit attributable to the parent company will be 15 billion yuan to 15.6 billion yuan in 2022, with a year-on-year increase of 234.94% to 248.33%. The company said that the market price of potassium chloride and lithium carbonate products rose during the reporting period, and the company's performance increased significantly compared with the same period of the previous year. The main business of the company is stable production and sales of potassium chloride. The output of potassium chloride is about 5.8 million tons, and the sales volume is about 4.93 million tons. On January 30, two domestic potash fertilizer leaders, Potash International, and Zangger Mining, simultaneously disclosed the performance forecast for 2022. Potash Asia International expects that the net profit attributable to the parent company and the net profit deducted from the non-parent company will be 1.96 billion yuan to 2.1 billion yuan in 2022, with a year-on-year increase of 120% to 136% and 589% to 639% respectively compared with the restructuring. For the substantial increase in performance, the company said that the main reason was that the 1 million tons/year potash fertilizer reconstruction and expansion project in Laos reached its capacity at the end of March 2022, and the potash fertilizer output increased significantly. At the same time, the company gave full play to its sales advantages, and the sales volume also achieved significant year-on-year growth, and the international potash fertilizer price increased significantly compared with the same period last year. Zangger Mining is expected to have a net profit attributable to the parent company of 5.63 billion yuan to 5.78 billion yuan in 2022, with a year-on-year increase of 294.44% to 304.95%. During the reporting period, the sales price and sales volume of the company's potassium chloride products increased compared with the same period of the previous year, driving the operating income and profit of the company's subsidiary Zangger Potash Fertilizer to increase compared with the same period of the previous year, and the company's production line of 10000 tons of lithium carbonate fully reached the production standard. The high landscape of the industry is expected to continue What will be the demand and price trend of potassium chloride in 2023? People in the industry do not agree. Most of the respondents believed that potassium chloride could maintain the operation with high sceneries. However, some insiders said that high prices had restrained the overall demand for potassium chloride. "Since the end of last year, the potassium chloride market has gradually strengthened, and the market is mainly operated by replenishment. At the beginning of this month, the market continued the trend of last month. The demand for winter storage in Northeast China continued to advance, the market turnover improved, the shipment volume increased, and the market transaction price continued to rise." An industry analyst told reporters. Salt Lake said on the investor interaction platform a few days ago that there is still a gap in the domestic demand for potash fertilizer, and the domestic output cannot meet the demand. The adjustment of the potash fertilizer tariff is conducive to reducing the cost of fertilizer. Potassium Asia International also said on the investor interaction platform: "Considering the factors such as the increase in demand for grain cultivation brought by the continuous growth of the global population and the difficulty in solving the gap between the supply and demand of potash fertilizer in the short term, it is expected that the potash fertilizer industry will continue to operate at a high level. However, as a production-oriented enterprise, the company does not pursue the unreasonable high price of potash fertilizer. The higher the price rises, the greater the fluctuation, which is not good for the production-oriented enterprise. We hope that the price will be stable at a reasonable level acceptable to consumers. Therefore, the company The future performance growth mainly depends on the rapid increase of potash fertilizer production and sales scale and the new profits of the non-potash business, which can bring stable income growth to the company. " Source: Shanghai Securities News