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Farmer Fertilizer Focus - Ammonia

By: Josh Linville, Vice President- Fertilizer

NH3
 
Josh Linville
Director - Fertilizer
What everyone wants to know first, what do we think will happen going forward
NH3 prices are going to continue to rally thru fall, assuming mother nature does not screw things up.
Given how cheap NH3 is compared to urea and UAN, this could be a HUGE application run.  I've already told my dad that once he gets a chance to start applying, he should keep going 24 hours a day.  If he cannot, call me and I'll take the nighttime shift.
Now, there are no guarantee's.  We have all seen seasons where mother nature doesn't play nice.  If it turns cold/wet on November 1 and stays that way, NH3 could be free and it wouldn't make a difference.  If we have a terrible fall run, we will go into the winter season very full and without a lot of fill opportunities for producers.  With limited storage, they would be forced to drop values for fill (spring pull is a different beast) to clear excess tonnage.
Regardless, NH3 is your best chance at saving some cash.
What has happened in the last 30 days?
Urea & UAN values rallied hard...and made NH3 very cheap in comparison
I will not bore you with details of what happened in the global urea and UAN markets.  If you want to see what happened there, check out those sections.  Long story short, both products are up SIGNIFICANTLY over the last 30 days.  Those price movements made NH3 far too cheap in comparison...which caused prices to start climbing.
Fertilizer producers look at each product from a fundamental S&D.  When a situation like NH3's price being this cheap occurs, they start to drive the price higher so that supplies are not overran to the point that they are completely emptied.  I know that doesn't make a ton of sense.  The other way of looking at it is that they can take the price of NH3 much higher and demand will still be there since it is soo cheap in comparison.
If you have already secured your NH3 for the fall, get it in the field.  If you haven't, go get a price quickly and lock that stuff up.  You will not like the alternatives....
Hurricane Ida's impact was worse than previously thought
We originally had expected minimal impact to the nitrogen market due to Hurricane Ida.  From a plant POV, we were absolutely right as facilities reported minor to no damage occurred.  No surprise given that these plants cost billions of dollars and are built by an energy sector that is used to building in high stress locations.  
However, I overlooked something.  The plant can be perfectly fine but that doesn't matter if you do not have electricity.  That was one of the biggest situations in the Delta region.  It wasn't flooding, wind damage, etc.  It was the lack of power after the storm.
By the time power was restored, we estimate (no official word is ever given) that weeks of production were lost.  If North America had been comfortably long prior to the storm, it wouldn't be a big deal.  However, that was not the case.  Any lost production time is felt immediately this year.
European natural gas values jumped huge
In fact, European natural gas values have jumped to over $25MMBTU equivalent.  What does that mean for NH3?  With that input cost, 1 ton of NH3 costs OVER $1,000USD to produce.  Obviously the current fertilizer market will not bear that high a price so plants across Europe shut down.  Not just one or two.  Many.
A lot of people have asked why they shut down if they hedge their inputs.  Well, that is assuming that they do which not all of them do.  Remember, this is fertilizer.  If we were smart, we would be in another industry!!!!  
In all seriousness, these plants were built to make money.  If they did hedge their gas, they can make more money by shutting down the plants and selling that paper back to the market.  If they did not hedge their gas, then they cannot buy and produce at a profit.  Either way, they are shutting the operation down.
The unfortunate part is that the futures market show current prices holding thru to April '22.  Anything/everything can change and oftentimes it does.  However, if that market is right, we cannot expect production to resume until next spring.  For a world NH3 market that was already extremely tightly supplied, this is bad/bullish news.
Reports that other regions (Asia) are seeing similar natural gas price hikes
This doesn't surprise me.  Not only are there reports that Asian gas prices have started to rally, but we have seen similar here in North America.  Think of it as a sympathy price hike.  
I've not see anything information to back that global prices will continue to rise and hold but given how 2021 has played out, I wouldn't count it out either.  This is something that needs to be watched closely.
Where are current values in relation to the past
For UAN, we use NOLA/New Orleans Louisiana as our base point as it is the easiest spot to track.
  • Vs 30 days ago - +16 or approximately $110 higher
  • Vs 90 days ago - +22% or approximately $141 higher
  • Vs 6 months ago - +75% or approximately $334 higher
  • Vs 1 year ago - +152% or approximately $470 higher
Bull/Bear Factors
Because no market is ever guaranteed to go higher/lower, we try to consider the factors that can sway values so that we are able to act when they occur rather than react.
Bullish Factors
  • Crazy cheap...vs urea & UAN – yes, I  know NH3 isn't cheap.  Nothing fertilizer related is cheap.  NH3 is so cheap in comparison that demand should overload supply this fall.  Assuming that happens (nature allowing), prices will start to skyrocket (think triple digits) 
  • Demand expectations remain high (91M acres corn) – unless someone can convince me that the corn market doesn't need/want 91M acres, we need to expect hefty N demand this fall and into next spring.  High demand will keep upward price pressure on all things N related.
  • Worldwide production issues – the world has an energy situation that it hasn't realized yet.  The loss of European nitrogen production hurt badly.  NH3 was already tightly supplied around the world.  The loss of any production was going to be felt.  The fact that it struck an entire region makes it worse.
Bearish Factors
  • Weather – if NH3 was free, it wouldn't matter if mother nature turned sour on us.  If you cannot run a toolbar thru your field, you cannot move inventories.
  • Weather – if we have a terrible fall run, we will go into the winter months already full on inventories.  That means producers have nowhere to go with their product.
  • Weather – if they have nowhere to go with their product, they could slash prices to make it disappear.  Production plants cannot risk filling their own inventory which would mean shutting down urea and/or UAN production.
ARE WE BETTER OR WORSE OFF THAN WHERE WE WERE?
We believe that only looking at the flat price of either grains or fertilizer can be misleading:
  • Only selling grain can hurt you if fertilizer prices rise substantially;
  • Only buying fertilizer can hurt you if grain prices fall.
We look at the ratio "value" to get a better indication of where we are or how many bushels of X does it take to pay for 1 ton of fertilizer.
Would you rather:
  • Spend 150 bushels to pay for 1 ton of NH3
  • Spend 80 bushels to pay for 1 ton of NH3
When we compare the current ratio value against recent years, we start to see if we are high or low.
Pay more attention to the horizontal dotted line as it compares the current phosphate price against new crop values.
  • Very quickly, we start to see if we are high/level/low vs previous years.
YOUR VALUES WILL LOOK DIFFERENT
This graph looks at the Western/Eastern Cornbelt NH3 price vs the flat grain price. There are no logistics on either product. Your location will look different due to fertilizer logistical costs, grain basis, etc.
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Josh Linville’s Thoughts
  • Get everything applied this fall that you can.  Assuming urea and UAN values remain higher/go higher (hard to see the opposite happening), current NH3 values are FAR too cheap.  Now, they are not cheap.  I understand that.  But they are cheap compared to other N sources.  Do not miss a window to apply because it will represent one of the cheapest routes you can go.
  • Buy a small, emergency scuba bottle...NOW.  If you have ran a toolbar, you likely have a story.  Hoses burst.  Couplings rupture.  If you have an emergency bottle in the cab, rather than barely making it out alive, you can have several minutes of air to get to safety.  Seriously, it is a cheap investment that could possibly save your life.  If you do not get one and you get killed, I'll resuscitate you myself just so I can slap the crap out of you for not listening!!!!!
  • Fertilizers

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