London, 9 July 2025 (SPS) - The Australian company Dyno Nobel (formerly Incitec Pivot) has definitively halted the importation of phosphate from occupied Western Sahara, announced on Tuesday by the International Observatory for Natural Resource Monitoring of Western Sahara, Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW).
"With the sale of the distribution business and the closure of the Geelong plant (which previously imported and processed phosphate from Western Sahara), Dyno Nobel will have no further links to the production or sale of superphosphate (SSP) and, consequently, no supply chain for phosphate. We can confirm that Dyno Nobel will not purchase any phosphate shipments following the closure of the Geelong plant later this year," wrote Tatiana Rudometova, the company's Director of Legal and Corporate Affairs, in a letter to WSRW.
According to Dyno Nobel, "the production of SSP will cease in September 2025." This decision ends decades of illegal trade with an occupied territory, without the consent of its people, in violation of rulings by the Court of Justice of the European Union and international law.
"We are pleased that Australia has finally stepped out of the lot. It is a shame that our agricultural industry has been built for so many years on the suffering of the Sahrawi people," reacted Ron Guy, Secretary of the Australian Trade Unions for Western Sahara.
For decades, three private Australian companies have been involved in the importation of phosphate from Western Sahara. Besides Dyno Nobel, the other two were Wesfarmers/CSBP and Impact Fertilisers. The former ceased its imports of phosphate from occupied Western Sahara in 2011 and the latter in 2013.
In a report published at the end of June, WSRW welcomed the reduction in 2024 of the list of buyer clients for phosphate from Western Sahara, which is illegally exploited by the Moroccan occupier. "WSRW had never seen so few clients in a calendar year as in 2024: only four importing companies," the document notes. In the first year of systematic and continuous monitoring of shipments, in 2012, WSRW identified 15 importers.
Today, most importers have ceased their purchases due to the mobilization of the Polisario Front, the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people, whose actions before European jurisdictions have led to significant results, including the annulment of two trade agreements linking the EU to Morocco due to the inclusion of Western Sahara, a territory "separate" and "distinct" from the kingdom under international law.
The Polisario Front is supported by around forty international organizations, including WSRW, whose commitment allowed, in 2017, the blocking in the ports of Panama and Cape of Good Hope of ships carrying Sahrawi phosphate.
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