Chinese phosphate exports have fallen to almost zero in 2026, compared with 5.3 million tonnes in 2025, as limited sulphur supplies keep production directed towards the domestic market. Fertilizer Daily Markets reported the figures, citing Argus Media analysis covered by the Western Producer. The decline has largely removed China’s supply from international phosphate trade this year, with Argus expecting only a partial return in 2027.
Lynn Wang, Argus’s senior consultant for China, said Beijing regulates fertilizer exports as a means of managing conditions in its home market. Those measures include restrictions on shipments of both phosphates and sulphuric acid, according to the report. Wang attributed the current focus on supplying domestic phosphate requirements entirely to the shortage of sulphur, rather than describing a production balance that leaves material available for overseas buyers.
Argus projects that Chinese phosphate exports will recover to approximately 2 million tonnes next year. That would mark a rebound from the near-absence of shipments reported for 2026, but would remain below the 5.3 million tonnes exported in 2025. The analysis links a further recovery in exports to greater security of sulphur supply, making feedstock availability central to the outlook for China’s return to the international market.
The report contrasts phosphate constraints with China’s urea trade. Argus put Chinese urea exports at six to seven million tonnes in 2026 and expects a similar volume in 2027. Those shipments have helped lower urea prices since the beginning of the US–Iran war, according to the analysis. Phosphate affordability, however, is at its weakest in years on Argus’s index.
Fertilizer Daily Markets also reported pressure on import-dependent markets from China’s reduced phosphate presence. In Brazil, sulphur shortages are already leaving capacity idle for monoammonium phosphate, single superphosphate and triple superphosphate, adding a production constraint alongside the loss of Chinese export supply.