Fertiliser merchants set out their stalls

By Roger Chesher

AS agricultural merchants publish their own fertiliser terms it is evident that the structure initiated by the majors is holding.

Some merchants are complaining at what they perceive to be an attack on their ability to make a margin.

The manufacturers argue that having made multi-million pound losses they must take control of their own business.

Nitrogen remains at 111/t and is set to rise by 2/t next month, but it is too early to see how much business is being done. In these circumstances there is usually a rush at the month end.

The next big question is: What will happen to the price of imported nitrogen?

The UK needs to import 2.5 million tonnes of finished nitrogen products to meet demand, and recently the imported price has been significantly below the domestic.

There are signs that the import price is returning to its usual level of approximately 10 below the majors, i.e 101/t on farm.

While some new imports have been booked, ammonium nitrate is by no means easy to source, at least at the prices the UK market wants to pay.

With urea prices high, South America has turned to ammonium nitrate and, with the absence of specific duties, exporters find the market more attractive.

Anti-dumping duties on Polish, Lithuanian and Ukraine nitrogen will hike their prices by an estimated 20/t at the month-end, and already Russian exporters are exploiting the situation by demanding an extra US$12/t for their material.

The autumn fertiliser market is under way, with 0.24.24 selling for 109-113/t.

Kemira, as the one remaining UK manufacturer of complex granular NPK, prefers to concentrate on spring-applied NPK for the winter cereal market.

Its distributors have “competitive” prices for this range to tempt customers away from autumn PK.

The grassland market is very depressed at present.

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