By: Josh Linville, Vice President- Fertilizer
North America looks pretty rangebound in the gulf but inland prices jump when demand appears.
The biggest question I have revolves around N demand in general. That means I wonder if we will keep our corn acres. So far, this spring has been a bust. Not to say we cannot catch up but preplant work (such as NH3) has struggled.
If we keep corn acres constant to higher and NH3 ends up being a failure, that means a huge demand wave is coming for urea. Given what we have seen in the south, that is going to support regional prices. On the flip side, last spring taught us that corn acres are far from guaranteed. If farmers start making the switch to less N demand heavy crops, N demand drops and so does the price.
Today, I'm middle of the road/bearish but concerned local inland prices could jump.
Price comparisons
U.S. Midwest Average
U.S. Southern Plains Average
U.S. Northern Plains Average
Middle East
Number 1 exporter (as a region, not as individual nations)
Egypt
Number 5 exporter (4.6mmt in 2021)
Top 5 export destinations
Price comparisons
Black Sea
Number 1 exporter (7mmt in 2021)
Top 5 export destinations
Price comparisons
China
Number 4 exporter (5.3mmt in 2021)
Top 5 export destinations
Price comparisons
Brazil
Number 2 importer (7.8mmt in 2021)
Top 5 import origins
Price comparisons
We believe that only looking at the flat price of either grains or fertilizer can be misleading:
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:
When we compare the current ratio value against recent years, we start to see if we are high or low.
YOUR VALUES WILL LOOK DIFFERENT
This graph looks at the NOLA urea 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.
All data was sourced from StoneX unless otherwise noted.
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