Central Florida: The market was mostly quiet last week, with sellers waiting on farming conditions to improve. Fields remained generally unsuitable for any type of work in many areas, sources claimed, with wet fields continually refreezing overnight in northern locations.
DAP was called $445/st FOB for rail-loaded product shipped out of Florida, and $450/st FOB for material shipped by truck within Florida or to the lower Southeast. Producer DAP started at $440/st FOB, sources said.
As a result, the Central Florida DAP market was unchanged at $440-$450/st FOB. MAP was called $20/st higher than DAP, at $460-$470/st FOB.
U.S. Gulf: Fresh import announcements and a late start to the spring planting season in the Midwest and Northeast contributed to softening on the NOLA barge market last week.
Sources put most nearby DAP trades in the $415-$418/st FOB range, with physical offers predominantly quoted at $415-$425/st FOB. Rumors were heard of a pair of barge transactions in the $400-$402/st FOB range, though some ascribed the prices to forward buying. “I know those levels have been done for May and June,” one contact said. Nevertheless, at least one nearby barge buy was confirmed at $405/st FOB for the week.
MAP transactions were essentially absent from the market, but new offers were said to have trailed DAP lower. Some argued that domestic MAP had maintained a $10-$15/st premium over DAP tons, while most agreed imported Moroccan material had been offered at near-DAP levels.
Much of the market’s decline could be attributed to the start of spring, one contact said. The March 20 date passed with largely unworkable field conditions in much of the Midwest and Northeast regions, capping a weeks-long face-off between the market and NOLA-bound phosphate imports totaling at least 160,000 mt.
Market players had hoped the weather would clear ahead of the equinox, giving farmers time to begin applications and spurring enough demand to absorb the new material. But some sources believed the start of planting was still “weeks away” as of March 26.
Complicating matters was a pair of newly announced Moroccan vessels headed for NOLA totaling 100,000 mt of DAP and MAP, bringing the total amount of announced Moroccan imports to 260,000 mt for spring.
Some industry players believed protracted negotiations for the price of phos acid sold to India – settled last week at $805/mt for first-half 2015, an increase of $40/mt from the previous price – had contributed to the influx of Moroccan material at NOLA.
Without many bargaining chips to play in negotiations with India, some speculated Moroccan phosphate producer OCP may have dangled the threat of cheap exports to the U.S. as leverage. “They have to do something with all that (phos acid),” said one trader, “and the longer the talks dragged on, they would have to granulate it and use it for DAP and MAP.”
News of the settlement could help spur the barge market, another source noted. “Before now people were hesitant to buy (spot barges) because they could assume imports would keep bringing prices down, but now hopefully this gives people some confidence to jump into the market,” he said.
Not everyone agreed that the slow phos acid negotiations were responsible for the season’s hefty imports, however, with some citing a new Moroccan loading terminal and preexisting supply agreements for the volume.
The NOLA barge market softened to a range of $405-$418/st FOB, down from $421-$425/st FOB the week before. The last confirmed MAP transactions were quoted in a range of $430-$437/st FOB, though most believed the next round of business would be concluded in a range of $407-$425/st FOB.
Eastern Cornbelt: DAP re