Western countries sanction Russia, international urea prices soar

Asian markets were quieter – The supply from Russian is not important -- but the prices in most regions still increased with double-digit gains.

Western sanctions against Russia have severely limited the available supply to most buyers this week and pushed up nitrogen fertilizer prices.

Importers from Europe and Central and South America have entered the market to search for urea this week, while traders are looking for urea from producers, pushing both FOB and CFR price levels up.

Urea prices in Egypt are as outstanding as ever, the granular urea prices rising $145/t to close at $905/t fob in a string of transactions over the past week.

The market driven

sanctions against Russia

Shipping rates for Russian goods are hard to find and expensive. Many buyers in Europe and America will not buy fertilizers from Russian. Financing the Russian fertilizer trade has proven challenging. EU gas prices have surged to record highs, potentially leading to higher nitrate prices or closure of EU producers.

freight

Soaring crude oil prices and recovering demand have pushed freight rates to new highs.

The outlook for 30-60 days

Trade flows between different products will adjust as market participants adjust to the difficulties of Russian fertilizer trade. But it seems to take some times, supply is relatively tight during this time.