
Fertilizer Industry News Roundup
Yara International is to build a major new speciality fertilizer and biostimulant production plant near York.
Yara International is to build a major new speciality fertilizer and biostimulant production plant near York.
Tony Will, the president and CEO of CF Industries, is the new chair of the International Fertilizer Association (IFA). He was elected in June alongside a number of other executive board members and board directors.
This June marks a milestone for this magazine; a platinum jubilee since the very first issue of the magazine was printed in 1953. It began life as the Quarterly Bulletin of the Sulphur Exploration Syndicate. The Syndicate was created in 1952, and was backed by nine major chemical producers, mainly in Britain and the US, who were concerned about dwindling world supplies of sulphur. Though some of these companies have vanished by the wayside over the years, including F.W. Berk and Co. Ltd, British Titan Products, Brotherton & Co., and Charles Tenant & Sons Ltd, others remain household names to this day, including Monsanto, Courtaulds (now part of Akzo-Nobel), and Dunlop (now owned by Goodyear), while Fisons’ fertilizer division was sold to Norsk Hydro in 1982 and today trades as part of Yara.
Metso Outotec’s annual general meeting (AGM) in early May approved the board of directors’ proposal to change the company name to Metso Corporation. “After the successful integration of Metso and Outotec, we will focus on growing a strong unified Metso company and brand,” says President and CEO of Metso, Pekka Vauramo. “We have combined two valuable companies into one strong Metso. Our focus is clear: we continue enabling sustainable modern life and transforming the industry with a clear strategy and strong culture, supported by a name that is short yet established and well recognized among all our stakeholders. Services are an extremely important part of our business, requiring a strong name.”
Market Insight courtesy of Argus Media
Further downward corrections are possible but the rate of demand is stabilising, suggesting the market floor is in sight, though some have suggested that May could bring another sharp reduction in the Tampa contract price towards the mid$300s c.fr. Demand remains sluggish in both eastern and western hemispheres.
Mining, metals and fertilizer business intelligence company CRU has launched a new low-emissions ammonia (LEA) price assessment in its Fertilizer Week price reporting service. The price takes a value-based approach, whereby a premium on the Northwest European ammonia price is calculated on an emissions-mitigated basis, and leverages CRU’s proprietary nitrogen asset emissions data combined with weekly European carbon prices to calculate the value of emissions mitigated. CRU says that it has leveraged its Emissions Analysis Tool to develop the premiums on an emissions-mitigated basis as opposed to a cost basis, allowing end-users to assess how the switch to LEA can deliver value to their business while contributing to their decarbonisation strategies. The Emissions Analysis Tool is a comprehensive asset-byasset emissions dataset for the nitrogen industry.
The first global review of phosphate rock resources since 2010 has reported that technically recoverable reserves should last for more than 300 years.
The inaugural Argus Sustainable Fertilizer Americas Conference is being held at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay, Tampa, Florida, USA, 5-6 June 2023.
Market Insight courtesy of Argus Media. Urea: Scarcity continued to drive urea prices higher in some markets at the end of April. The US market remains short on urea and prices spiked to reflect this. Nola barges for April were trading as high as $450/st f.o.b. ($490/t cfr), 55 percent up on this year’s low point. Southeast Asia remains short on urea too, amid planned and unplanned turnarounds, with one cargo trading at around $345/t f.o.b.