Nutrien to sell two cargoes of ammonia into the European market next month

Durrant Pate/Contributor

Trinidad has been shipping significant amounts of ammonia to North West Europe to try and shore up its market, which is suffering from natural gas curtailment due to the ongoing conflict between the West and Russia.

With the continuation of reduced petrochemical production out of the continent, Trinidad has stepped up its game with Nutrien, Trinidad’s largest producer of ammonia, announcing plans to sell two cargoes into the European market next month. The company is also selling significant volumes into the North African country of Morocco.

European curtailments have meant even higher prices for ammonia, which edged up last week by US $15 per metric tonne.

Argus Media is reporting that, “Nutrien has sold two cargoes into NW Europe loading from Point Lisas in September. Trinidad is further supplying four cargoes, totalling 112,500t, to OCP for delivery into Jorf Lasfar, Morocco, in the early part of September”.

Ammonia shipment from Trinidad

Nutrien, which is a Canadian fertiliser company based in Saskatoon with operations in Trinidad, announced the sale of a 10,000t Trinidad cargo for delivery to northwest Europe at $1,290/t duty free, which is $5/t higher than when Argus assessed the region on 24 August. The cargo will load in the second half of September from Point Lisas.

On August 19, Nutrien announced the sale of a spot ammonia cargo from Trinidad into northwest Europe. The vessel is expected to load in early-September.  

It is being reported that European production costs have soared above the market price since mid-June, but as feedstock costs breached $3,000/t this week, several producers made the decision to bring production offline. Some are planning to switch to imports and take advantage of steady global supply options for ammonia until the end of October.

Argus says there is potential for some stability into September but sellers may look to slowly increase offers in order to prevent any downstream destruction. A supply crunch could therefore emerge from November when seasonal demand ramps up.

In the meantime, Yara is the latest ammonia producer to confirm it is implementing further curtailments. The planned shutdowns across its European fertiliser plants will be concentrated mostly at its Sluiskil and Tertre factories in The Netherlands and Belgium.

Yara has been ramping up ammonia shipments from its supply sources in Trinidad, the US and North Africa to cover its higher requirements. No new purchases are reported out of Morocco, but the September line up has grown to 135,500t, the majority of which will be supplied from Trinidad.

Trinidad is the leading source of ammonia for Morocco this calendar year. Four cargoes, totalling 112,500t, are scheduled to arrive at Jorf Lasfar from September 2-20 from Trinidad and Tobago, with an additional 23,000t arriving from the US Gulf.