IPL received first shipment of unethical phosphates of 2016
Article image

A New Year's gift of an estimated US $3,7 million. That's what Australia's Incitec Pivot paid the Moroccan government for its first 2016 shipment of phosphate rock sourced in occupied Western Sahara.
 

Published 12 January 2016

On 5 and 7 January, the bulk carrier Maratha Prudence discharged 8,000 tonnes in Portland and another 22,000 tonnes in Geelong - the two ports were Ozzie fertilizer producer Incitec Pivot Limited (IPL) takes in its cargoes of raw material. The discharge operation is said to have ended last Sunday, 10 January.

WSRW's Australian Member Organisation, AWSA, had protested the shipment in December, while the vessel was still on course for Australia. "As we have pointed out to you many times in the past, the material is being sold to IPL, not by its rightful owners the Saharawi people, nor with their consent, but by the occupying power in their country, Morocco. As we continue to remind you, every transaction with Morocco involving goods from Western Sahara, strengthens Morocco’s resolve to resist a fair resolution of this decades long occupation", AWSA president Lyn Allison wrote to the Chairman of the IPL Board, Mr Paul Brasher.

AWSA also took the floor at Incitec's AGM in Melbourne on 17 December, questioning the legality and ethics of IPL's continued imports from Africa's last colony. Their intervention was covered in a piece from The Weekly Times on the need for scrutiny at corporate annual meetings.

Incitec Pivot has been subject to blacklisting by investors over the past few years, precisely due to its imports from occupied Western Sahara and related human rights concerns. 

The company maintains that its shipments are perfectly lawful

On 10 December 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union annulled the EU-Morocco Free Trade Agreement as it was applied in Western Sahara. In its verdict, the Court stated in very clear terms that Morocco does not possess any mandate by the United Nations or by any other international institution for the administration of the territory.



 

SRI update

The following overview enlists stock-exchange registered companies with current or recent operations in occupied Western Sahara. Updated 3 November 2025.

03 November 2025

Enel dodges question on project in occupied territory

A decade after it was first announced, the fate of one of Enel’s wind farms in occupied Western Sahara remains uncertain.

27 October 2025

Global Diligence defends operations on occupied land

The legal advisory firm Global Diligence, which presents itself as expert on ‘heightened due diligence’, misrepresents international law in occupied Western Sahara.

16 October 2025

MEPs shocked by Commission's Western Sahara bypass

In a hearing at the European Parliament earlier this week, lawmakers expressed outrage at how the Commission sidestepped them to push through a new agreement covering occupied Western Sahara, in violation of EU Court rulings.

10 October 2025