Russia has decided to raise export quotas for urea, ammonium nitrate (AN), and urea ammonium nitrate (UAN) to the end of this year, Interfax reported on Nov. 21, citing the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Quotas will be raised to the end of 2022 by 400,000 mt for urea, 200,000 mt for AN, and 150,000 mt for UAN, as per a decision by a ministry subcommittee.
According to the report, citing Russia’s Deputy Industry and Trade Minister Mikhail Ivanov, increasing the quotas for the remainder of 2022 will allow the country to maintain the volume of nitrogen fertilizer production and prevent overstocking at warehouses. But the priority remains supplying the domestic market, with only the tons not needed on the home market going for export, the minister said.
The Russian government on May 31 this year extended the quotas for the export of nitrogen and complex fertilizers that were first introduced on Dec. 1, 2021, and that expired on May 31 this year (GM June 3, p. 1; Nov. 5, 2021). The new export quotas were to be in effect between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2022. For the month of June, producers were able to export these fertilizer products without limits.
The quotas, which had been set originally to run between July 1 and Dec. 31, were slightly more than 8.3 million mt for nitrogen fertilizers and 5.95 million mt for complex fertilizers, according to the report.
According to an Interfax report, the amounts of the quotas originally set for the July 1 to Dec. 31, 2022, period included 1.86 million mt for AN, 5.1 million mt for urea, 1.36 million mt for UAN, 3.55 million mt for NPK, 1.8 million mt for MAP, and 584,500 mt for ammonium phosphate sulfate.
Russia also now plans to extend the export quotas for the period from Jan. 1 to May 31, 2023, in the amount of 7 million mt for nitrogen fertilizers and 4.9 million mt for complex fertilizers, according to a draft government resolution prepared by the ministry and posted on the regulation.gov.ru website on Nov. 18, cited by the report.
The Russian government in June had mooted the extension of the export quotas into 2023 (GM June 10, p. 1).
According to the report, the quotas for the period Jan. 1 to May 31, 2023, will be 1.16 million mt for AN, 4.6 million mt for urea, 1.25 million mt for UAN, 2.7 million mt for NPKs, 1.74 million mt for MAP, and 0.48 million mt for sulphoammophos.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Agriculture Ministry has reported that the approved plan for fertilizer purchases by Russian farmers to the end of May 2023 totals more than 14 million mt by physical weight. Preliminary estimates suggest this will fully cover spring planting needs.