Qatar plant to boost urea supplies

By Roger Chesher

MOST of the activity in the world of fertiliser this week has not been at the farm gate, but very much behind the scenes.

The joint owners of the Qatar Fertiliser Company (Qafco) – Qatar Petroleum and Norsk Hydro – have approved a project to construct a new US$535m (365m) ammonia and urea factory in Qatar.

Capable of manufacturing 2000t/day of ammonia and 3200t of urea, the plant will make Qafco the worlds largest single ammonia and urea facility producing in excess of 4.8m tonnes each year.

While it is too early to say what impact this will have on our home markets, it is a further indication of Hydros commitment to fertiliser as a core business and illustrates the global nature of fertiliser production.

Larger volumes of efficiently produced urea available in world markets should help to keep the price of nitrogen at a reasonable level, even though urea sales represent less than 10% of our home market.

On-farm, arable buyers are too busy with drilling to even think about fertiliser sales.

PK sales are still surprisingly slow and all is quiet on the import front.

However, some nitrogen is moving, mainly on to dairy farms where signs of buoyancy are creeping back.

CURRENT PRICES

IRELAND

Forecast prices