North Korean authorities are placing strong emphasis on fertilizer production ahead of the full-scale start of the farming season. Daily NK understands, however, that the Sunchon Phosphatic Fertilizer Factory remains unable to properly produce fertilizer.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had attended the plant’s inauguration ceremony in 2020, where he called the opening of the facility the “gunfire signaling the first victory” in the country’s “frontal breakthrough” campaign.
According to a Daily NK source in South Pyongan Province on Monday, Sunchon Phosphatic Fertilizer Factory has been unable to substantively produce fertilizer because it has failed to replace imported raw materials and supplies with locally produced substitutes.
The plant’s storage tanks are full of pulverized concentrated phosphorus, the source said, but the place has been unable to secure a smooth supply of the urea and other chemicals needed to convert it into ammonium phosphate.
China intensified export restrictions on urea, ammonium chloride, ammonium nitrate, and other fertilizer materials last year. Since then, North Korea has reportedly been suffering supply problems with the price of raw materials for inorganic fertilizers rising.
Imports of fertilizer materials have somewhat increased with the restart of freight train service between China and North Korea in January. However, the amount has been insufficient, so the materials have been directed to existing fertilizer factories that can produce fertilizer right away.
In particular, the authorities have apparently been unable to obtain equipment the plant needs to remove the fluorine produced when extracting phosphoric acid from apatite.
Because of this, scientists and engineers dispatched from institutions such as Kim Chaek University of Technology remain at the Sunchon factory to study the problem.
Pak Pong Ju, then vice president of the State Affairs Commission, said at the plant’s completion ceremony in May 2020 that the facility, designed to “produce large amounts of concentrated phosphatic fertilizer from low-grade ore suitable to North Korean conditions,” was equipped to reduce labor requirements by “realizing automation and systemization from the injection of raw materials to the packaging of products.”
However, the plant remains unable to complete even the first stage of producing fertilizer — that is, extracting concentrated phosphoric acid from apatite — on its own, despite two years passing since the plant was completed.
Another source told Daily NK that smoke can rarely be seen rising from the plant’s smokestack. He said there were a few days after the plant’s completion ceremony when smoke could be seen, but recently, operations at the plant have more or less stopped.
US-based North Korea analysis website 38 North reported in January that an analysis of satellite imagery failed to detect smoke that would indicate the plant is producing anything. The website said the plant does not appear fully operational, despite two years passing since its completion.
However, Sunchon Phosphatic Fertilizer Factory reportedly no longer packages and delivers fertilizer produced at other factories.
According to a Daily NK investigation, as recently as July of last year, North Korea had been shipping fertilizer produced at factories in Gangwon Province and elsewhere from Sunchon Phosphatic Fertilizer Factory to make it look like the plant was producing fertilizer.
Meanwhile, North Korean authorities are issuing no reports about the current status of Sunchon Phosphatic Fertilizer Factory, while urging increased production from existing fertilizer factories such as Namhung Youth Chemical Complex and Hungnam Fertilizer Complex.
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