Incitec Pivot Ltd. (ASX: IPL) is an Australian chemicals & explosives manufacturer based in Southbank, Victoria. Incitec Pivot is the largest supplier of fertilisers in Australia; the largest supplier of explosives products and services in North America; and the second largest supplier of explosives products and services in Australia. The company began trading on the ASX on 30/07/03 having been formed as the result of a merger between Incitec Fertilizers and the Pivot group and substantially expanded with the acquisition of Southern Cross Fertilisers in 2006 and Dyno Nobel in 2008.
Employing approximately 4,500 staff worldwide, Incitec Pivot has extensive operations throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and Australia.
In 2005 the company struck a deal with the Government of Nauru to re-develop the country's phosphate mining industry, which had fallen into disrepair. The company invested $5 million to facilities and machinery, and phosphate mining resumed in late 2006.
Incitec Pivot bases a large part of its fertilizer production on imports of phosphate rock from Western Sahara, a territory which has been occupied by Morocco since 1975. Since such imports is considered in violation of international law, Incitec Pivot has been blacklisted from portfolios of several European ethical investors.[1]