CRU Phosphates+ Potash 2026

A unique global gathering

Simon Inglethorpe, the Editor of Fertilizer International magazine, welcomed delegates to Paris:

“On behalf of CRU and our sponsors, I’d like to warmly welcome you all to Paris and the 2026 Phosphates+Potash Expoconference.

“As the only global gathering of the phosphates industry, this conference has always been unique. In Orlando last year, we also saw the event championing the potash industry for the very first time. Paris will build on that success with an event that lives up to its name, Phosphates and Potash, by bringing together these two sister segments.

“At their core, CRU events are about market intelligence and making connections – that’s because we believe our industry is much stronger when we work together and share knowledge, insights and expertise. Uniquely, Phosphates+Potash combines a commercial agenda with a technical agenda in one single event. This enables the conference to cover the entirety of these two industries from both an operational and a market perspective.

“I don’t need to tell anyone that we have a very tumultuous market backdrop right now – characterised by conflict, geopolitical upheaval, volatile fertilizer prices and supply stoppages. The good news is that our commercial programme has this fast-moving global market comprehensively covered and will keep you well informed with the very latest insights.

“Our technical programme, meanwhile, offers a deep dive into current innovations – with the focus very much on new technologies that can improve margins, elevate efficiency, ensure environmental compliance, and increase output.”

Fertilizers facing the biggest disruption

In the opening keynote, CRU Principal Consultant Humphrey Knight highlighted the fallout from the current Middle East conflict.

“Arguably among all bulk commodity sectors, fertilizers have seen the biggest direct disruption from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, most notably sulphur and urea. Around half of all global sulphur exports originate or pass through Gulf nation states; for urea, it’s around one third. Phosphate fertilizers have faced direct disruption, as has ammonia, with about a fifth of exports currently stranded by what is occurring in the region today,” he said.

Knight did make one caveat, though.

“This is just focusing on the traded portions of those markets” he said. “For example, with the urea market, about one third of global urea produced is traded and about one third of that is currently facing direct impact – so, at a global level, the impact is not as severe as it might seem.”

Nonetheless, traded fertilizers are key when it comes to pricing, as Knight explained:

“Why this matters so much, when it affects the traded portion, is because that is where prices are set globally. And we have seen a complete uptick in fertilizer prices over the last couple of months. There have been some very significant price moves, particularly on the nitrogen side, while on phosphates and potash it is a little more muted.”

Affordability was emerging as a particular market concern currently, relative to the previous Russia-Ukraine crisis of 2022.

“One difference that arguably makes this as severe as 2022 relates to crop prices. What’s occurred over the past six weeks has barely made any movements in the crop price market at all. Consequently, even with these more muted upticks in fertilizer prices, what we’ve seen is that fertilizer affordability, on average, is about as bad as it was at the worst moments in 2022,” Knight said.

Phosphate prices are on an upward trajectory, at least in the short term, according to Knight.

“We’re expecting to see prices continue to rise over the next 5-6 months or so. While the Middle East is going to have a big effect on the magnitude, it doesn’t fundamentally change the direction. Chinese export restrictions have been the big controlling factor on prices over the past few years – we think that’s going to continue,” he said.

This year, China is not expected to release any DAP and MAP exports until August. CRU is also expecting 2026 export volumes to fall to below three million tonnes for the first time since the late 2000s, adding to market tightness. The paradox in China is, while its exports have become increasingly restricted, the country’s DAP and MAP production is at record levels.

“The last couple of years, we’ve seen more than 30 million tonnes of DAP and MAP being produced within the country [annually]. Now, it’s hard to gauge how this is being consumed – we do think there’s been a lot of stockpiling going on,” said Knight.

Furthermore, these volumes are probably being produced at a loss, suggested Knight.

“Sulphur prices in China today – which China can’t really control because it’s a net importer – are now significantly above the capped price of DAP, an extraordinarily rare situation. This means that Chinese phosphate margins, generally the lowest in the world anyway, have now turned firmly negative – so most producers, not all of them, are now loss-making,” he said.

Returning to phosphate fertilizer pricing levels, these are exceptionally high at present and at levels rarely seen in the 21st century to date.

“Even before the Middle East conflict had broken out, prices were already rising. Today, if you’re looking to get hold of some DAP or MAP, you’re going to be given an offer of something in the low $800s to $900 per tonne,” said Knight, before warning of further rises to come. “It’s worth noting that we are expecting a number of DAP and MAP prices to breach $1,000 a tonne over the course of the next few months – so do keep an eye on that.”

Fertilizers, grains and shipping – one shock after another

The opening day’s industry keynote panel was chaired by Willis Thomas, CRU’s Head of Fertilizers. On stage with him were Ilya Motorygin, Managing Partner at GG Trading DMCC. Monika Tothova, Senior Economist at the FAO, and Jari Kiuru, SVP Raw Materials at Finnish Minerals Group.

Ilya Motorygin set out the trader’s view of the Strait of Hormuz supply shock. On fertilizer affordability – echoing Humphrey Knight’s comments – he argued that the current episode feels worse than the 2022 Russia–Ukraine crisis. Then, crop prices rose broadly in line with fertilizers, he said, giving growers more revenue to absorb higher costs. Now, with fertilizer prices moving faster than most crop benchmarks, the affordability squeeze is more severe, he suggested.

Motorygin also highlighted a sharp rise in freight rates.

“We trade from the Baltic to Brazil. This time a year ago, we were able to find handysize vessels at [freight rates] of $25-30 a tonne. Today, we’re talking about $50 to $55 – so it’s doubled, literally doubled,” he said.

For Brazilian buyers, therefore, rocketing freight rates add a large delivered cost before the DAP price is even considered. With Saudi tonnes constrained, the overall effect of the Strait of Hormuz closure is tighter and more expensive supply, advised Motorygin. Ilya offers an in-depth traders view of current market conditions in an accompanying interview with Fertilizer International. .

The impact of the Middle East conflict on wheat prices has been muted so far, according to Monica Tothova, while maize and vegetable oils have shown some price response.

“For wheat, looking at futures prices for the current marketing year 2025/26, you have not seen much movement yet in reaction to anticipated shortage. You have seen movement for maize, [and] obviously for vegetable oils, because of the biofuels linkages,” Tothova said.

The lack of price movement for wheat was largely because this year’s global crop was already planted with spring fertilizer supplies also secured, Tothova suggested.

“Most of the wheat in the world is actually planted as a winter wheat – so that is already in the ground. The main [wheat] producers, most of them, have [also] already bought the fertilizers for the spring applications. The importer might be holding onto it because they might get a better price. But, physically, the supplies for spring applications should be in-country already,” she said.

Tothova added: “The world hasn’t fully grasped the implications of the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz yet.” She expects more visible impacts to emerge as the Northern Hemisphere spring progresses and farmers adjust their planting decisions.

In the US, for example, the growing area may shift from maize to soybeans to reduce fertilizer requirements.

“What are farmers going to plant: are they going to go more into the soybeans, are they going to go into maize? The indications are that a chunk of them are going to adjust the mix to the extent they can,” she commented.

Tothova also flagged up grain transport and shipping as a major concern. “Already, even without fertilizers applications, the concern we are following right now is the increase in shipping costs – and the fact that you might not have even enough fuel to get the grain from point A to point B,” she said.

Tothova also highlighted major differences in the ability of farmers to cope with fertilizer supply shocks. Large commercial farms and cooperatives in the US, EU and Brazil, for example, can forward buy, carry stocks and use hedging tools. Smallholders in lower income regions, in contrast, typically buy fertilizer only when cash or subsidy allows. They cannot build strategic stocks or manage price risk, even though they need fertilizers as a key lever to raise their yields and incomes.

Tothova warned that a shift to self sufficiency in food commodities would be a costly and environmentally damaging move that could “get pretty dangerous, pretty fast”. Past attempts to achieve cereal self sufficiency in water scarce regions, for example, have led to serious aquifer depletion.

For both food and fertilizers, she argued, predictable and reliable international trade remains essential.

“The best thing is to maintain open trade. The same applies for agricultural commodities and, as Ilya mentioned, for fertilizers. Without a predictable trading environment, which we have not enjoyed in the last few years, with one natural or man-made shock after another, we cannot achieve a state of equilibrium,” said Tothova.

In Europe, Jari Kiuru suggested that classifying phosphorus as a critical but not a strategic mineral was creating problems for phosphate project development and resource security within the EU.

“Phosphate is not strategic, it’s only critical, and that’s why we cannot access instruments which would help with project financing, green financing, permitting and so on. At the moment, this systemic error makes it especially difficult to develop phosphate projects in Europe – it’s also the reason why we are developing multi-product mines,” he said.

Combining phosphate mining with the extraction of rare earths – which are classed as strategic minerals – within a single project was therefore advantageous, Kiuru suggested: “One of the reasons we include rare earths in production is that that allows us to apply strategic status.”

He concluded by suggesting that – in response to the Middle East conflict – the EU needed major policy support for domestic fertilizer production that matched the ambitious RePowerEU support package put in place after 2022 to limit EU dependence on Russian oil and gas.

“Let’s hope that they come up with a ‘ReFertilizeEU’ [package] to help,” Kiuru said. “It’s not the sole solution, but it would give more instruments to take the [company’s Sokli phosphate] project forward.”

Technical programme and other highlights

Presentations from the event’s technical programme were highlighted in a series of articles in our March/April magazine:

• Meeting sustainable growth in fertilizer demand with CASALE technology. Gabriele Marcon, CASALE (Fertilizer International 531, p48)

• The strategic transformation of phosphogypsum from a waste to a resource. Tibaut Theys, Prayon (Fertilizer International 531, p52)

• Merchant-grade acid (MGA) preparation and logistics. Jan Tytgat, De Smet Agro (Fertilizer International 531, p56)

• Innovative reagents for processing phosphate ores worldwide. Benoit Grymonprez and Guoxin Wang, Arkema (Fertilizer International 531, p58)

• Unlocking phosphate beneficiation potential: a ‘Mine-to-Mill’ transformation. Keenan Collins, Jayden Ladebruk and Edward DeRose, Hatch (Fertilizer International 531, p62)

• Next generation evaporation units in phosphoric acid plants. Aziz Chbeir, Yara, and Azza Kioua, GEA (Fertilizer International 531, p68).

Our March/April issue also featured eight abstracts of technical presentations (Fertilizer International 531, p41) and an interview with regular conference exhibitor Bradley Pulverizer/Lancaster Products (Fertilizer International 531, p70). An article based on the presentation ‘Promoting increased potassium use efficiency (KUE)’ by Karl Wyant, Nutrien’s Director of Agronomy, is also featured in the current May/June issue.