Good afternoon and welcome to the Brazil Potash Corp investor conference call. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Ashish Gupta, Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.
Thank you, Operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Brazil Potash Corp's inaugural investor call as a public company. On the call with me today is Stan Bharti, Executive Chairman, Matt Simpson, Chief Executive Officer, and Mayo Schmidt, Advisory Board Chairman. Today, we'll discuss business highlights from our F-1 Registration Statement. Note, as we are in a 25-day Quiet Period following the IPO, management will not be taking any questions today, but we look forward to meeting with investors in the new year. I would like to remind you that during today's call, management's prepared remarks may contain forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainties. These statements do not guarantee future performance and therefore undue reliance should not be placed upon them.
We refer you to all risk factors contained in the press release and in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for more detailed discussion of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projections and any forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly correct or update forward-looking statements made during the presentation to reflect future events or circumstances except as may be required under applicable securities laws. At this time, it is my pleasure to introduce Brazil Potash Corp's Executive Chairman, Stan Bharti.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Stan Bharti, and I'm the Executive Chairman and the founder of Brazil Potash. We've come a long way from 2008 when I first identified this as a great opportunity. Over the last 15-odd years, we've now spent over $200 million on this project. I've got all the permits, done the feasibilities, done all the work, and now we're already in construction, in the first phases of construction at the site. Before I pass it on to Matt and to Mayo to give you some details, I want to highlight for you the space of potash, why we decided to go into Brazil and get into potash. Brazil is the largest exporter of food products in the world. About $170 billion of food is exported from Brazil. One in five plates of food in the world comes from Brazil.
Number one exporter of corn, of sugarcane, soybeans, all comes from Brazil. Brazil has one Achilles' heel. It imports almost all its fertilizers. The most important fertilizer is potash. And today, the potash industry is about 70 million tons a year. It's a very unique industry because it's very hard to find good potash deposits. And the industry is controlled and dominated by two giants: Nutrien, which is a company out of Canada and Saskatchewan, Canada, and Uralkali, and Belaruskali. Belarus is in Byelorussia, and Ural is in Russia. Kali in Russia means potash. So between these sort of two conglomerates, they control 60%-70% of the potash supply. The largest importer of potash is Brazil. Brazil imports 13 million tons of potash a year and is growing at a rate of 7%.
So both the Canadians, the Russians, the Byelorussians fight to get into Brazil and sell potash there because they get the most transparent price. They get the best price as the most competitive market. For example, when potash is sold in China, sold in India, it's sold at negotiated annual rates, at discounts. In Brazil, it's a free market. Ironically, the country that is the largest producer of food in the world and also has one of the largest potash deposits sitting next to the agriculture belt in the world in Brazil. This project was identified originally by Petrobras, one of the largest oil companies in the world, in the 1980s and 1990s. When oils took off in 2005, 2007, they didn't pay enough attention to it. It wasn't a priority for them. Over the last few years, we acquired all the claims, did drilling, feasibility work.
Everything's ready to go. So today, the project is in construction with all the permits. We have a full team in Brazil, and we're ready to go. The economics of the project, Matt Simpson, will discuss with you. But I want to emphasize to you is this: this is not just another mining resource project. This is a game changer for the country of Brazil and for the potash business. We, when we're in production, will supply the lowest-cost potash in the world, green potash, because all our energy is going to be sustainable, and we're going to sell it to the farmers in small quantities in local currency. What happens today? Potash comes from Canada or Russia or Byelorussia in 300,000-ton Capesize vessels. The Cargill of the world, the other blenders, buy these big vessels.
They buy them, store the potash, and sell it in smaller quantities to the farmers and mark it up. Because we are sitting in the heart of one of the largest agricultural belts outside the town of Autazes, a farmland, cattle-raising community eight kilometers from the Amazon River system, the largest freshwater system in the world, we can supply potash on barges in small quantities to the farmers. Why do we supply in barges? Because barges go from the west to the east on the Amazon River system, carrying all kinds of food products to the Atlantic. A lot of them come back empty. We can put our potash on these barges and distribute it to the farmers. Finally, our partner, Amaggi, is one of the largest farmers in Brazil. They have a contract with us partly for the offtake of our potash and for sales.
The state of Mato Grosso, the largest agricultural state in Brazil, alone consumes five million tons of potash. Our plan is phase one to produce 2.4 million tons of potash and eventually develop it to five million, and the asset we have has the ability to supply all of Brazil's potash, so imagine, for food security, as the world goes from seven to 10 billion people, how critical this project is when Brazil is the breadbasket of the world and has the largest amount of arable land left in the world, so that is a high-level picture. Why we are involved in this project? I just want to emphasize one other thing: our companies have been in Brazil for 20 years. We know Brazil well. It's a great country to invest in, and we've been very active in it.
So we have full local teams, hands-on people to build, construct these projects, and we've done many of them. With that, it's my pleasure to introduce Mayo Schmidt, who's recently joined us as Chair of the Advisory Board. He was the ex-CEO of Nutrien. Mayo, perhaps you can tell everybody about your background and your feelings about the project.
I'd be happy to. And thank you, Stan. And thank all of you for joining us today. I think it's a tremendous opportunity to get together and talk about what's a very interesting project that's certainly gotten my attention and brought me back to the fertilizer sector. So I'd like to speak to you today. And as a bit of a background, I'm certainly proud to have contributed to food production over the last three decades and across a full spectrum of agriculture globally. My leadership concentrations have been in fertilizer manufacturing, mining, and retail and crop inputs. Recent history: my leadership role as CEO of Viterra and the architect of taking Viterra from a regional co-op over a 12-year period to become a global leader.
We created an agriculture leader which achieved growth in production through seeds and fertilizer and movement of those commodities globally to over 50 countries around the world. We operated on four continents. We experienced the opportunity to consolidate our operating space, and we achieved growth from $40 million in EBITDA to over $700 million during my tenure. The operations, as I mentioned, were across the full supply chain of crop inputs, and that included supporting farmers in soil health, seed technology, crop protection, and then the manufacturing and mining of critical fertilizers such as potash for crop production. I operated really across the full spectrum of crop consumer products companies to supply them with our products for human consumption. Viterra really was a global leader and continues to be today in the agriculture supply chain. I led the company for 12 years as CEO, achieving financial operating successes.
We grew from a value of just about $200 million to over $7 billion in those 12 years, which ended in the sale in 2012 of Viterra, which, of course, is now operating globally today as well. Following Viterra, I chaired the Board of Directors of VersaCold and also was a co-investor. We were able to triple the value of that company in 18 months prior to the sale based on our operational and financial achievements, so a great outcome of tripling value. Actually, post-Viterra tenure, the day after, I was invited to join the board of Agrium. Later, I chaired the board committee for the merger of equals between Agrium and Potash Corporation, which formed Nutrien, which now, of course, is a retail and fertilizer production leader globally.
On that combination, I was asked by the merged boards to chair the combined companies, which I did for a number of years. And then, at a point post those years, I was asked to lead the company as CEO as the board undertook succession planning for the existing management at that time. So I'm proud to say during that tenure, we achieved record earnings and record share price. So thinking about this and the opportunity here and my experience in operating vertically integrated from seed, crop protection to fertilizer, and the collection and production and processing of these products, I couldn't be more excited to participate in the development of this critical project for global food security.
And the fact that Stan and his teams have identified and secured these minerals in Brazil, the major export country in the world, and the major buyer of potash in the world, with the first major find, marks a historic point in time where Brazil can become self-reliant to a much greater degree on its ability to grow its ag production with three crops a year for export to feed nations. So Matt, I'll now turn that over to you, and thank you all.
Matt,
quick, please queue up the presentation.
Great. This time our presentation has concluded. I'll turn the conference over to Stan Bharti, Chief Executive Chairman, for closing remarks.
Matt, can you cue the video, please?
The audio doesn't seem to be working. I'll run through it orally. So Brazil Potash, what really makes this investment exciting is that Brazil exports $167 billion a year of agricultural goods. It's one of the world, yet is highly exposed because potash, which is one of the three main nutrients used to grow food with no substitute, when potentially one of the biggest basins in the world is sitting in its backyard being developed by Brazil Potash. So simply because we're in Brazil and everyone else is 9,000-12,000 miles away, our cost to extract, process, and deliver is less than just the transportation cost alone for everyone else. We anticipate having several.
Please stand by momentarily. Looks like a line disconnected. We'll resume the conference in a moment. Again, please stand by momentarily. We'll resume the conference in a moment.
Yeah. Please be patient, guys. Something went wrong here. Thank you.
Okay, Matt. You're rejoined.
Matt?
I'm sorry, Matt. Matt, your line is lagged. I'm sorry. You're back in the conference now.
Nope. Please just keep rolling ahead with the video.
The webcast is playing.
Okay. Good. Sorry. I thought it wasn't playing properly because I was having it muted.
Yeah. No. Just apologies for the miscommunication. We're live with the webcast right now.
Okay. Perfect. Thanks, guys.
Okay, thank you very much, everyone. This does conclude the presentation. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Stan Bharti, Executive Chairman, for any closing remarks.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. We're listening to the presentation. Because of the quiet period, you know, the presentation, everything has to be very formal. I want to make a couple of comments. One is, it was a difficult IPO to do. We were very fortunate that we bought in Franco-Nevada, one of the largest investors in royalties, and they gave a lead order, and it's on the cover of the F-1. And we also brought in two strategic investors from Brazil. So that means these are long-term good shareholders.
We realized that in the Reg A financing we did about two years ago, we have 7,000 retail shareholders, and we want to make sure that those shareholders are fully informed about what's going on with the company and the project because we have not communicated with them for some time because a lot of these shareholders, we use an organization that they came through. So we want to make sure they're aware. Once the quiet period is over, we will obviously have a full-time office for corporate business development, for IR, for PR, so people can call, ask questions. Fundamentally, we're looking at a very good long-term project. And we have worked very hard to get it where it is. And we're happy the quiet period is going to be over December 23rd. Unfortunately, it's over on a day when Christmas starts.
So realistically, we're looking at the quiet period more or less being until January 6th. But we have a great management team. We have a great asset. We have all the permits. We're in a country which is critical to the world in terms of food security and agriculture. So we appreciate your support and your patience as we move forward. Thank you, Operator.
Thank you so much. This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you again for your participation. Thank you.