Nitrogen fertilizer market: the international market bottomed out in June

The FOB price of the Arabian Gulf large granules is unusually low as low as US$280 (t price, the same below), which is more than US$10 lower than China’s large grain and CIS urea granules. Egypt’s urea has not been traded for two consecutive weeks. It seems that Algeria’s large-particle urea has become a competitor to Egyptian sources of supply, and Egyptian sources are slowly losing their competitive edge. At the same time, Iran's large grain urea and China's urea at the same time in the Turkish and Italian markets indicate that the traditional trading pattern and market share have changed.

June is the off-season demand in the international market, leading to the current oversupply, and thus downward pressure on prices. The market is still not out of softness. Because the price is still falling, buyers are still delaying. With the end of spring tillage and fertilizer in the United States and Europe, the market for large-grained urea is under heavy pressure; the small demand for small particles in the Asian market has limited the export volume of suppliers. The political conflict in Ukraine forced most of the domestic urea production to cease, resulting in two effects: it contributed to the stability of the small granular urea market west of the Suez Canal; due to the reduction in Ukrainian trading volume, the Baltic transaction price would become the benchmark price in the CIS region. The current U.S. price is stable at the FOB price of 290-295 U.S. dollars.

Some traders began to sell China's urea in July, and these sources of goods enjoy low tariffs, which is one of the reasons for the price drop in the international market. It is expected that the demand for urea will be large in July, and the price will stabilize, which will stimulate buyers to sell. Urea exports to the U.S. will start shipping in July, traders will also start purchasing for Europe, Brazil will spend the peak season, India will hold regular tenders every month, and Pakistan will return to the import market, all of which indicate that the Urea price will come in June. To reach the bottom.

It is expected that the international urea market will be in an oversupply situation from June to August. From August to September, the market supply and demand will gradually balance, and the strong urea market will usher in the fourth quarter.