science

The Mosaic Company

The Mosaic Company is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Mosaic Company rather than just read about it. In short: The Mosaic Company is an American chemical company based in Tampa, Florida, which mines phosphate and potash and collects urea used for fertilizer, through various international distribution networks and Mosaic Fertilizantes. It is the largest U.S. producer of potash and phosphate fertilizers.

Key takeaways

The Mosaic Company belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Mosaic Company to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Mosaic Company from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Mosaic Company is an American chemical company based in Tampa, Florida, which mines phosphate and potash and collects urea used for fertilizer, through various international distribution networks and Mosaic Fertilizantes. It is the largest U.S. producer of potash and phosphate fertilizers.

Overview The Mosaic Company was formed in October 2004 by a merger between IMC Global, a fertilizer company formed in 1909, and Cargill's crop nutrition division. It is a combined producer and marketer of concentrated phosphate and potash with a customer base that includes wholesalers, retail dealers and individual growers worldwide. Its headquarters are in Tampa, and it employs about 13,000 people in eight countries.

Products

Potash

Mosaic has roughly 10.4 million tons of operational potash capacity. The company owns potash mines or surface mills in Belle Plaine, Colonsay, and Esterhazy (K1, K2, and K3) in Saskatchewan, and Carlsbad, New Mexico, with another potash mine recently purchased in Brazil during the Vale Fertilizantes acquisition. The Colonsay mine and mill are indefinitely idled and in maintenance mode. Esterhazy K3, in development, consists of an underground mine and service/production shafts separate from the K1 and K2 underground mines. Esterhazy K3 does not have surface milling and storage facilities. Instead, it is intended to replace the ore being mined from the K1 and K2 mines. The shift in production was to decrease brine-management costs of the K1 and K2 mines, which were $108.0 million for 2020. Mosaic is a member of Canpotex, an export association of Canadian potash producers through which they sell their Canadian potash outside the U.S. and Canada. Its potash mine locations are:

Carlsbad, New Mexico (32.412°N 103.939°W / 32.412; -103.939) Belle Plaine, Saskatchewan (50.429°N 105.199°W / 50.429; -105.199) Colonsay, Saskatchewan (51.928°N 105.766°W / 51.928; -105.766) Esterhazy, Saskatchewan K1 (50.729°N 101.929°W / 50.729; -101.929) Esterhazy, Saskatchewan K2 (50.660°N 101.846°W / 50.660; -101.846) Esterhazy, Saskatchewan K3 (50.644°N 101.993°W / 50.644; -101.993)

Phosphate Mosaic has about 16.8 million tons of operational capacity for finished concentrated phosphates. The company is the largest producer of finished phosphate products with an annual capacity greater than the next two largest producers combined. It has a global distribution network made up of plants, port facilities, warehouses, and sales offices. In 2013, Mosaic produced 7.6 million tons of concentrated phosphate crop nutrients and over 15 million tons of phosphate rock production. In October 2013, Mosaic reached an agreement to purchase the phosphate operations of CF Industries for US$1.4 billion, which eliminates the need for Mosaic to spend an additional billion dollars to build a processing facility in Hardee County, Florida, to process the rock from the mines in the area. Phosphate mines are located in the Bone Valley formation of the Peace River watershed in Central Florida:

Fort Meade (27.648°N 81.757°W / 27.648; -81.757) South Pasture (27.586°N 81.942°W / 27.586; -81.942) Four Corners (27.715°N 82.141°W / 27.715; -82.141) Wingate Creek (27.506°N 82.130°W / 27.506; -82.130) Fort Lonesome (27.715°N 82.150°W / 27.715; -82.150)(Closed) Mosaic owns a 25% stake in the Ma'aden Wa'ad Al Shamal Phosphate Company joint venture in Saudi Arabia. With the completion of the Vale Fertilizantes acquisition in January, 2018, an additional five Brazilian phosphate rock mines, four chemical plants, and an additional 40% economic interest in the Miski Mayo mine were purchased.

Carbon footprint The Mosaic Company reported total CO2e emissions (direct + indirect) for 31 December 2020 at 4,920 Kt (+340/+7.4% year-over-year).

Timeline

2023

August: The Mosaic Board of Directors elected Bruce Bodine to succeed Joc O'Rourke as Mosaic's CEO effective January 1, 2024. Bodine was to serve as Mosaic president and a member of the board of directors effective immediately. 2018

January: Mosaic completed the acquisition of Vale Fertilizantes. 2015

August: Joc O'Rourke succeeded Jim Prokopanko as Mosaic's president and CEO. 2014

December: Mosaic acquired Archer Daniels Midland's fertilizer distribution business in Brazil and Paraguay. July: Cargill acquired Mosaic's Hersey, Michigan, salt plant. 2013

November: Mosaic closed the potash operations at the Hersey facility. 2011

May: Mosaic and Cargill completed a transaction to split off and distribute Cargill's stake in Mosaic. January: Mosaic and Cargill agreed to split off and orderly distribute Cargill's stake in Mosaic. 2007

January: Jim Prokopanko succeeded Fritz Corrigan as president and CEO of Mosaic. 2006

July: Jim Prokopanko was named Mosaic's chief operating officer. 2004

October: The Mosaic Company (NYSE: MOS) began trading on the New York Stock Exchange. June: Mosaic was announced as the chosen name for the newly formed company. January: The crop nutrition business of Cargill, Inc. and IMC Global entered into a definitive agreement to form a new crop nutrition company.

References

External links Official website Business data for The Mosaic Company:

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Mosaic Company

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Mosaic Company claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Mosaic Company before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Mosaic Company ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Mosaic Company

In research: The Mosaic Company appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Mosaic Company in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Mosaic Company is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2004 establishments in Florida, American companies established in 2004, Cargill, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Mosaic Company outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Mosaic Company in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Mosaic Company means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Mosaic Company out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Mosaic Company in simple terms?

Why does The Mosaic Company matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Mosaic Company?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Mosaic Company.