Over his long and arduous journey, Sir Cumference’s olfactory cells have learnt to detect the difference between a promising sharemarket scent and an ominous odour.
And so it was a clear case of the former this week when PhosCo happened to release the eagerly-anticipated resource update for its Gasaat phosphate project in Tunisia just hours before the PM went public with his plan to establish a national fertiliser stockpile.
All too much of a coincidence, it may have seemed. But the simple truth is that fertiliser, once covered exclusively by eye-glazing rural publications, is now front-page news for the mainstream press almost daily thanks to the Hormuz blockage.
It was therefore odds-on that the importance of PhosCo’s big increase in its phosphate inventory was going to be highlighted by the growing fears about fertilizer shortages and the need to establish new sources of the critical farming ingredient.
In the resources game, you have take your luck when global events dish it out. And PhosCo managing director Taz Aldoud is seizing his dose with both hands, as the resource increase showed.
PhosCo unveiled maiden resources on two new deposits at Gasaat. Known as KB and SAB, these deposits are particularly valuable to PhosCo because they are shallow and close to the site of the proposed processing plant at Gasaat.
As PhosCo pointed out, this all adds up to increased production and lower costs, which in turn mean increased cashflow in the early years of the project. And given that the early years of a project are considered by the market to be much more valuable than the later ones, this is good news for PhosCo shareholders.
The financial implications of these additional resources are expected to shine through in the updated scoping study. A feasibility study will start later this year.
Aldoud is all too aware that the window of opportunity has never been so wide open for his company. The world is not only hunting for new sources of critical fertiliser like phosphate, but it wants projects with genuine scale.
The small club of multi-nationals which dominate the industry hardly need reminding that there are very few new projects big enough to move their needles. Gasaat is one of them, hence Aldoud’s desire to continue growing the resource while progessing the technical and economic studies.
To this end, there are several work streams underway for the scoping study, including metallurgical tests to identify the best processing route. The results are imminent.
And assays are pending from a new prospect, DOH, which has the potential to grow the overall 167Mt resource significantly.
PhosCo’s proposition is that Gasaat has potential to be a large, long-life, world-class phosphate mining operation and is strategically located in Tunisia close to key export markets and end users.
Aldoud is determined to bring this potential to life. Analysts say that given the world’s appetite for what Gasaat would be offering, this could deliver in spades for PhosCo shareholders.
This was reflected in a recent note from Pitt Street Research, which valued PhosCo shares at 35-56c a share – well up on the current price of ~14c.
Analyst Nick Sundich said: “Investors will think of the war in the Middle East, but China’s decision on 14 March 2026 to suspend all exports of phosphate and phosphate-containing fertilisers adds further strain to an already disrupted global market.
“”The Iran conflict has intensified risks across commodity supply chains, particularly fertilisers, where Gulf producers hold an outsized share of global trade (almost 30%). Phosphate is essential not only for fertilisers, which underpin around half of global food production, but also for LFP batteries, where PO₄ represents about 60% of cell chemistry.
“Against this backdrop, PhosCo’s Gasaat project in Tunisia gains strategic relevance. Tunisia’s Mediterranean location provides flexible shipping routes to Europe and global markets, independent of the Gulf chokepoint”.
Notably, Sundich wrote his report before PhosCo unveiled its latest resource increase.
