All Posts from April 25, 2016

Intrepid announces potash pricing changes

Intrepid Potash announced on April 25 that it is raising its warehouse posting for 60 percent granular potash to $245/st FOB St. Joseph, Mo., up $15/st from the previous price at that location. The increase matches the Midwest warehouse posting increases announced by Agrium Inc. on April 15 and The Mosaic Co. on April 22.

Also effective April 25, Intrepid’s potash postings FOB Carlsbad, N.M., moved to $245/st FOB for 60 percent granular and $252/st FOB for 62 percent HB standard. The company’s potash postings FOB Wendover and Moab, Utah, remained unchanged at $315/st for 60 percent standard and $320/st for 60 percent granular.

MMTC closes urea tender

The MMTC tender closed Monday, April 25 with prices ranging from $226/mt CFR to $244/mt CFR, representing an almost $30/mt drop in prices since the last Indian tender last year.

Dreymoor came in with the lowest offer for 120,000 mt at $226.92/mt CFR into the East Coast port of Gangavaram. Following was Aries with 246,000 mt at 227.60 to the West Coast port of Rozy to $227.10-$231.47/mt CFR to East Coast ports.

All told, 23 companies put up about 2.3 million tons in firm offers with another 366,000 mt of optional offers.

Earlier estimates of freight of $13-$15/mt would put the netback to China at $212-$214/mt FOB, well even the most aggressive producers were willing to discuss in the run up to the tender closing.

India reportedly already has about 1.2 million mt on hand to start the season. Sources speculated before the tender closed that MMTC might buy just a few tons to top off what the country already has on hand. That speculation, however, was passed on Chinese prices in the $220s/mt FOB. The lower price reflected in this tender might prompt MMTC to snap up as many tons as possible to seriously front-load the application season.

See the April 29 issue of Green Markets for more details and discussion of this tender.