Fertiliser market looks set to grow

摘要

One of the challenges announced in early June at the UN food summit was for a 50% increase in global food output by 2030. But with arable land availability relatively constant at around 12M sq miles, this target can only be met by increased utilisation of new farming technology coupled with intensive fertiliser use, despite their drastically rising costs. The increasing cost of gas feedstock, from which most of the world's urea fertiliser is produced, is making fertiliser production in high-demand markets such as Europe and the US increasingly uneconomical resulting in increasing imports. The main reference prices in the urea market are the FOB Yuzhnyy (prilled urea) and FOB Arab Gulf (prilled and granular urea) quotes, which are frequently used in contract price formulae. In May, these were averaging around US$640 and US$600 respectively. Together, these two sources account for more than one third of global urea trade.