A negative weak for urea as US prices follow price movements elsewhere

Profercy's Nitrogen Index dropped for the fourth consecutive week on the back of price falls for both grades of urea.  Of particular note, the low end of Profercy's price range for US Gulf fob prices fell by $35ps ton this week. The changing fortunes for Gulf barge prices mean that Middle East producers will see lower netbacks from what has been the healthiest granular market in recent weeks. This was touched in our last blog post (here).

The prilled urea market has not fared much better. Despite a major purchasing tender being announced in India, lower prices have been paid for Chinese product destined for Asia. In the West, demand has been slow and there have been no real supply problems resulting from the events in the  Ukraine (which represents up to 6% of global urea exports).

Consequently, Profercy's World Nitrogen Index fell by 2.5 points to 184.81 this week. The graph below gives a good indication of the likely direction of prices in the coming months.

Profercy's World Nitrogen Index falls for the fourth week in a row

The Profercy Nitrogen Service provides daily updates, weekly analysis and monthly forecasting on global nitrogen markets, alongside key prices for all major products and markets. This includes prilled and granular urea, UAN, AN, ammonium sulphate and ammonia.

Free trials of all Profercy's fertilizer market reports are available here, including Profercy Nitrogen, Profercy Phosphates & NPKs and Profercy Potash.

The methodology behind the Profercy World Nitrogen Index can be found here.