February saw ammonia prices jump due to a series of plant outages, including EBIC in Egypt, and several plants in North America, including two on Trinidad; the 760,000 t/a Nutrien 4 plant and 500,000 t/a Tringen 2 plant, both due to gas shortages, as well as Yara and BASF’s 750,000 t/a unit at Freeport, Texas.
Market Insight courtesy of Argus Media
Meena Chauhan, Head of Sulphur and Sulphuric Acid Research, Argus Media, assesses price trends and the market outlook for sulphur.
Metal processing in Northeast Asia is the major source of sulphuric acid exports from the region, and the ramp up of Chinese copper smelter capacity is leading to increased acid availability.
Major projects to consider in the short term outlook are Barzan in Qatar and the Clean Fuels Project in Kuwait. Combined these would add over 3 million t/a of sulphur capacity.
There is an old adage that if you put two economists in a room, you will get three different opinions. As the world enters its second year of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, that certainly still seems to be the case among those grappling with predicting an increasingly uncertain world.
Fertilizer markets are rallying to an extent not seen in almost a decade. This is primarily being driven by strong demand fundamentals, with crop prices moving to their highest point since 2013. But low pipeline inventories and supply disruptions have also played a part. In this guest editorial, CRU’s Chris Lawson explains what’s driving this rally and highlights the key supporting factors.
Market Insight courtesy of Argus Media
The ammonia industry faced a difficult February, due to extremely cold weather conditions in the northern hemisphere. In the US, production outages resulting from winter storm Uri affected up to 7 million t/a of capacity.
Market Insight courtesy of Argus Media