Wednesday, May 18, 2022
Market Overview
The Ukraine War has disrupted global trade flows and none more so than international fertilizer shipments. With a UK nitrogen fertilizer market amounting to 2.2m tonnes per year, the loss of 25m tonnes of Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian production is clearly impacting the global supply balance driving prices to all time highs.
Competition from countries that have traditionally sourced Black Sea production from Odessa and export bans from others has made a tight supply situation worse. Some industrial consumers of urea have adjusted their processes to use agricultural rather than technical grades so there is now increased domestic demand for products that were formerly used by farmers alone.
Our Response
At Brineflow we have procured a limited number of fertiliser cargoes for June/July shipment and summer delivery to farms at competitive prices.
Managing Director Ian Ferris says “We are carefully matching sales to purchased cargoes so that when sales are made we can be sure that sale commitments are backed against certain cargoes at known prices. Security and Certainty of Supply are key watchwords in our business and gives you the assurance that we will deliver when the time comes.”
At the time of writing Global shippers have not yet offered terms for autumn or spring delivery but we are in daily touch with our supply partners ready to respond if things change. As the season progresses events overseas and out of our control will drive market sentiment and product availability. We anticipate a series of quite self-contained markets that will change on a month-by-month basis. Payment terms may be shorter than enjoyed in previous seasons.
Forward Look
Looking ahead, we are currently constructing one of Europe’s largest liquid fertilizer import terminals at our deep water facility in Sunderland to be completed by September 2022. This takes our UK strategic storage capacity to 60,000 tonnes married with the ability to access new deep ocean primary suppliers in Africa and the Americas away from Putin’s gas and European competition. Our ability access these new sources and to hold huge stocks in times of market turmoil means that we can be a reliable supply partner in these unprecedented times.