The BCIC urea tender for 100,000 mt of granular urea and 50,000 mt of prilled urea – both in bags – closed Monday, Oct. 8 with prices that confirmed levels more favorable to producers.
Four companies offered lots of 25,000 mt each in the granular tender with the lowest price coming from Swiss Singapore offering Chinese material at $399.00/mt CFR bagged. Three companies offered in the prilled urea tender, again with Swiss Singapore the lowest at $377.95/mt CFR.
Sources reported two other companies offered lower prices, but their offers seemed to have been discarded by BCIC. Agro-Industrial offered 25,000 mt of prilled at $365.87/mt CFR bagged. Hydro Carbon offered 25,000 mt of granular at $365.90/mt CFR bagged. Sources could not explain why these two companies were not included in the final tally released.
The package to bag, ship, insure and load/unload the product is pegged at $50/mt, for a netback for granular at $345-$350/mt FOB and prilled at $325-$330/mt FOB. The prilled price is markedly below the expectations of Chinese producers. At the same time, the granular netback surpassed the $335-$337/mt FOB estimated netback in the MMTC/India tender that closed Friday, Oct. 5.