100% NZ owned and operated farm fertiliser operations
In addition to the significant economic contribution we make to agriculture’s bottom line, we are also supporting our local communities with two manufacturing plants located right here in New Zealand.
In June 2025, Ballance announced it would cease manufacturing at its Mount Maunganui site.
You can read more about this site’s transition from manufacturing to storage, mixing and distribution here: Mount Maunganui site.
Fertiliser manufacturing
Ballance has two fertiliser manufacturing plants in New Zealand.
We have a phosphate fertiliser manufacturing plant in Awarua (near Invercargill) and our Kapuni (Taranaki) plant uses natural gas to produce urea, a nitrogen fertiliser.
Both sites are ISO 14001 certified. This is an international environmental management standard which is independently verified and recognised worldwide. The standard requires environmental aspects and impacts to be identified and effectively managed, it supports the continual improvement of environmental performance through efficient use of resources and waste reduction.
Awarua Plant
Our Awarua site manufactures phosphate products including superphosphate – a common fertiliser used in New Zealand farming. Superphosphate contains both phosphate and sulphur, two nutrients that are typically deficient in New Zealand soils.
Awarua also manufactures Serpentine Super which is a magnesium-fortified superphosphate product.
Fertiliser produced in Awarua is distributed to farms throughout New Zealand.
Consented activity
Our Awarua plant operates under three resource consents to manufacture phosphate fertiliser. These include a discharge to air, discharge to water, and the uptake of bore water.
Our discharge to air consent is for the discharge of fluoride and sulphur dioxide from our acidulation plant stack in the production of phosphate fertiliser. As required by our consent, we run in-process checks and at least fortnightly lab tests for sulphur dioxide and fluoride at our acidulation plant.
Our consent data is shared below. The data is updated quarterly. Last update November 2025.
Kapuni Plant
Our Kapuni site near Taranaki manufactures urea, which is the only ammonia-urea manufacturing plant in New Zealand. The plant also manufactures Go-Clear Diesel Exhaust Fluid which is used to reduce nitric oxide emissions in modern diesel engines.
This high-tech plant operates to stringent international standards, converting atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia and then to urea. The natural gas used to power this plant is sourced from nearby gas fields.
Consented activity
Our Kapuni plant operates under seven resource consents to manufacture urea. These include abstraction of water, discharge of wastewater and emissions to air.
Our discharge to air consent is for the discharge of ammonia and urea from the dust scrubber stack in our urea plant.
Our emissions to air are measured twice per year and reported to Taranaki Regional Council for inclusion in their annual report on the Kapuni operation.
Our consent data is shared below. The data is updated half yearly. Last update November 2025.
Our water abstraction from the local river is monitored continuously and reported quarterly to Taranaki Regional Council.
International standards
Our environmental and quality management systems are independently certified to the international standards of ISO 14001:2015 and 9001:2015.
ISO 14001:2015
Corporate,
Kapuni manufacturing,
Awarua manufacturing.ISO 9001: 2015
Awarua manufacturing,
Kapuni - statutory equipment.Health and safety
The health and safety of all our people across all our sites is our top priority and we are always striving for a safer workplace.
Our manufacturing sites have strict safety protocols in place and teams hold daily safety conversations.
We are always looking at improving how we keep our people safe and healthy.Protecting the environment
In addition to our different sites’ resource consent conditions and the international standards hold ourselves to, we live and work in communities across Aotearoa New Zealand. We want to help protect the environment for our families and communities now and into the future. Our co-operative-wide Environmental Policy outlines our objectives and how we will measure our performance.
Zero Harm
Operationally, our aim is to ensure everyone gets home safely and we do no harm to people or the environment -today, tomorrow and every day.
To help us meet this objective we are continuing to implement standardised Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) management systems across the entire business. We have already made great progress with our programme, which has continuous improvement through our safety evolution programme.