Tag: Urea

The government of Pakistan has published a ‘strategic roadmap’ for the country’s major Coal-to-Fertiliser (C2F) initiative. The project is being executed by the publicly-owned Fauji Fertiliser Company (FFC), and will use local coal reserves at Thar as feedstock for the ammonia plant, which will in turn feed 720,000 t/a of urea capacity. The $1.1 billion project aims to strengthen the country’s fertiliser security as well as add value to local resources. A bankable feasibility study was completed in November 2025, and the project is now in the Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) and project agreements phase. Under the proposed timeline, financial closure is expected between late 2026 and 2027, while commercial operations are targeted to commence in January 2031.

Changing markets for feedstock, shifts in demand, carbon pricing and geopolitics all help dictate the location of new urea capacity.

Polymer manufacturer Covestro has signed a memorandum of understanding with ammonia and urea exporter Fertiglobe and chemical producer TA’ZIZ to explore collaboration across the ammonia and nitric acid value chains. The MoU reflects the parties’ shared interest in assessing both near-term supply solutions and longer-term opportunities supporting the transition toward lower-carbon production pathways. The agreement was signed during the visit of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to the UAE.

Nitrogen+Syngas ’s annual listing of new ammonia, urea, nitric acid and ammonium nitrate plants.

Madras Fertilizers Limited (MFL) has submitted a proposal for a new $1.1 billion greenfield ammonia-urea manufacturing project in Chennai, aimed at strengthening domestic fertiliser production and reducing import dependence. The company says that the project is aligned with the government’s broader push for self-reliance in critical agri-inputs and improved food security. The proposed plant will have a capacity of 1.3 million t/a of urea and is currently at the feasibility study stage, but MFL says that its existing 1970s vintage plant is already running at 120% of nameplate capacity, and that a new larger scale facility would see significant improvements in output and operating efficiency.

• Prices are likely to remain on an upward trajectory as long as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed and Middle East export availability is constrained.

In just its first two months, 2026 had already managed to be a rollercoaster of a year, but at the start of March, the onset of hostilities against Iran by the US and Israel has managed to deliver another huge shock to markets, particularly commodities. Iran’s strategy of widening the conflict to neighbouring states, including by attacking Qatar’s massive LNG facility at Ras Laffan, effectively shutting it down, has sent the LNG market into chaos, and attacks on several tankers and other ships have paralysed maritime insurance markets and by default achieved the long-feared closure of the Straits of Hormuz.

NextChem says that its subsidiaries Stamicarbon and KT Tech have been awarded licensing, process design package (PDP) and critical equipment supply contracts for the development of three world-scale complexes, two of them dedicated to granular urea production, and one integrating ammonia and methanol co-production, for an undisclosed “major client in West Africa”. The contracts are all based on proprietary technologies.

Ammonia sentiment was overtaken this week by the escalating Middle East conflict and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which left vessels unable to enter or exit the Arabian Gulf. With maritime trade frozen, price indications for prompt Middle East business largely stalled. In normal conditions, the sudden removal of Gulf export flows would point to sharply higher prices, particularly given the already-tight global availability and surging urea values, but participants said the absence of tradable cargoes made it difficult to pin down an indication. The immediate knock-on was felt East of Suez, where the supply shock pulled southeast Asian values back up to around $470-480/t f.o.b. Prevailing length in the market has been reportedly absorbed, with buying interest strongest from east Asia and India.

The current block to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz places global fertilizer supply chains at risk, warns the International Fertilizer Association (IFA).