12/30/2024 Mid-Day Fertilizer Market Update
The fertilizer markets are going to be “off” tomorrow and Wednesday with the holidays (not that much has happened in the last week). Unless something happens, I will not send updates until Thursday after today.
International
- Still no official word from NFL/India regarding success/failure on their purchase tender
- Hard to see any success on this thing
- Both L1’s were simply too low vs all other offers
- As always, need to wait and see how it ends
- But it is hard to see it ending in any way outside of “meager participation/new tender announcement imminent”
- Otherwise, feels like the global markets are still on holiday
- Not much reported for sales
- Not much of anything seen in the paper markets
- Having Christmas and New Years on a Wednesday has to be the worst case scenario!!!
- Paper trades today
- No trades today
North America
- With little movement/activity globally, there isn’t much need for NOLA to move
- However, still things that need to be watched
- Nitrogen
- NOLA urea remains undervalued vs global replacement values
- Eventually that needs to “fix” to get imports coming
- That can happen with global values falling and NOLA holding value
- However, with the world setup, that doesn’t feel like the likely scenario
- UAN remains snug…and there is a cold snap coming
- Look at the coming forecasts
- There are some nasty low temps coming
- If those temps reach the deep south, we should see nat gas futures skyrocket
- Nitrogen producers can and probably will shut down production to sell their positions
- They make more money doing that…to the detriment of our markets
- Their positions…their calls to make
- N.A. UAN needs to worry about what Trump might do
- Russian imports has been the biggest competition to domestic manufacturers
- If Trump blocks them, we lose that competition
- Fall NH3 run looks like it was slightly short of our forecast but very near “normal”
- More on that in the coming weeks when we do the quarterly videos
- NOLA urea remains undervalued vs global replacement values
- Phosphate
- The DAP/MAP spread has narrowed back to historically normal differences
- Some have said this is due to poor overall fall demand
- I am not a believer in that POV
- We still see fall demand as near normal
- I see the price differential normalizing because the system switched when it was triple digits
- If MAP being a $100+ premium was the pendulum all the way to the right, it being where it is now is all the way to the left
- Have to assume that retailers/farmers will start switching back to MAP this winter
- …which should have the opposite effect…again.
- If NOLA DAP and Dec ’25 corn hold, we will set all-time high ratio records for January / February
- I do not say that to celebrate
- That sucks for everyone involved
- Unfortunately, NOLA DAP remains priced in line with other major buyers in India and Brazil
- This remains a global issue
- The DAP/MAP spread has narrowed back to historically normal differences
- Potash
- I got nothing here. It is well supplied. It is well priced.
- Nitrogen
- Paper trades today
- No trades today
- Physical trades today
- No trades today
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