AMMONIA
AMMONIA
U.S. Gulf/Tampa: While prices for September went up to $425-$435/mt DEL, sources last week were predicting that by the time October rolls around, they could slip again. Others noted the recent drop in natural gas prices, which they say will give ammonia producers some leeway should nitrogen prices begin to fall.
Eastern Cornbelt: Anhydrous ammonia remained at $550-$560/st FOB in the region for prompt or prepay tons.
Western Cornbelt: The Western Cornbelt ammonia market remained at $550-$560/st FOB regional terminals for prompt tons, with fall prepay offers in the $560-$570/st FOB range.
Southern Plains: Steady fertilizer movement was reported on preplant wheat. Sources said efforts were underway to pressurize the western leg of the Magellan ammonia pipeline after months of hydrotesting. One industry source said expectations are that product will be available the second week of September at Conway, Kan., and possibly in Clay Center, Kan., the week after.
The upswing in spot prices continued to spark caution on the part of some buyers. “We are playing a fairly conservative position right now,” said one. “Our coverage is adequate, but not long. We will fill in some holes with spot tons if the need arises and as we liquidate our positions.” He noted as well that forward pricing ideas are mixed. “For every bullish attitude, there is an offsetting bear,” he said.
The anhydrous ammonia market was quoted at $490-$500/st FOB regional production points, with reference levels at the $540-$545/st FOB level at pipeline terminals in Kansas. Effective Aug. 23, Agrium’s ammonia postings moved to $545/st FOB Clay Center, Kan., $540/st FOB Conway, Kan., $535/st FOB Mocane, Okla., and $495/st FOB Borger, Texas.
South Central: The ammonia market had firmed to $495-$540/st FOB regional terminals, with the low at Memphis, Tenn., and the upper end FOB Henderson, Ky.
India: FACT closed its 7,500 mt tender Sept. 1, with Transammonia apparently taking the prize.
The Trammo price of $372/mt CFR has an estimated netback of $345-$347/mt FOB.
The offers from the Arab Gulf producers showed they were swinging from the fences. The estimated netbacks on their offers were just under $390/mt FOB.
Tender results follow.
FACT Ammonia Tender 7,500 mt
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Company
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US$/mt CFR
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Transammonia
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372.00
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PIC
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412.90
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Qafco
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414.00
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Sabic
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415.00
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Sources speculate the Trammo tons could come from Iran or Oman. Transammonia ?Çô working through its European office ?Çô has done deals with Iranian suppliers in the past. And Indian buyers have not been averse to taking Iranian tons.
In general, the Iranians offer their ammonia and urea for a few dollars off the Arab producers’ desired prices. The difference, sources say, is because of the embargo against using U.S. dollars to purchase Iranian products. The buyer usually has to work through a financial middle man ?Çô usually in the UAE ?Çô to handle the currency transfers.
The return of FACT to the buying market came as a relief to many producers who have been looking for more public spot buyers to help show how much the market has moved.
The last time FACT was seriously in the market was in January, when it sought to secure up to 100,000 mt in 7,500 mt lots.
Middle East: The FACT/India tender confirmed all the talk of recent weeks that the price was moving up.
Then a purcha
Dr. Rick Ringer, associate professor, Illinois State University College of Business, was honored with the “Friend of Growmark” award at the cooperative’s annual meeting in Chicago in late August. The award was established in 1989 to recognize outstanding leadership and commitment to agriculture, and friendship to the Growmark System.
Also at the meeting, five FS member cooperatives were recognized for business performance improvement. The cooperative with the highest degree of improvement was Ag View FS, Inc., Princeton, Ill. Mark Orr is the manager and Ron Pierson is president.
Ranking second was Lincoln Land FS Inc., Jacksonville, Ill. Keith Hufendick is the general manager, and Joe Pickrell is the president. Conserv FS Inc., Woodstock, Ill., with David Mottet, manager, and John Henning, president, was in third place. Fourth place was held by Vineland Growers Co-operative Ltd., Jordan Station, Ont., George Mitges, manager, and Phil Tregunno, president. Ranking fifth was Southern FS Inc., Marion, Ill. Alan Kirby is the manager, and Rollo Burnett is the president. Growmark measures the improvement based on return on invested capital. Each cooperative’s return on invested capital improvement is measured over a five-year timeframe in comparison to other cooperatives in the system.
Intrepid Potash Inc.’s board of directors on Aug. 30 increased the number of directors from five to six and elected Chris Elliott as a Class I director. He will serve as an independent director. Elliott has approximately 23 years of work experience in the agriculture industry. Since 2007, he has been the president and co-owner of Accuform Technologies LLC, an agriculture product development company. He is also president and CEO of Agricultural Co. of America Partners LP, a company that owns and manages agriculture real estate and operates farms producing a variety of crops over a diverse geographic spectrum. Elliott previously served as president and CEO of Nutra-Park Inc., an agriculture plant growth regulator company, from 2002 to 2006.
Karin Dorrepaal will join DSM on Sept. 1 as senior vice president in the corporate strategy & acquisitions department, reporting to Hein Schreuder. At the end of 2011 she is to succeed Schreuder, who is at present executive vice president corporate strategy & acquisitions, reporting to Feike Sijbesma, CEO and chairman of the managing board. Dorrepaal, a Dutch national, has had several non-executive roles since leaving the executive board of Schering AG in Berlin. At Schering, she was responsible for business diagnostic imaging, as well as the global supply chain and procurement. Prior to joining Schering she was with Booz Allen & Hamilton (now Booz & Co.) for 14 years, where she was a leader of the Life Science practice. She holds a PhD in Medicine, as well as an MBA.
Houston-BHP Billiton Petroleum, part of BHP Billiton Corp., has donated US$250,000 to support relief work for victims of the recent Pakistan flood disaster. Funds will be donated from the UK-based charitable company BHP Billiton Sustainable Communities. The donation will be made to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) – the world’s biggest humanitarian agency – and directed immediately to WFP’s emergency relief operations in Pakistan. The funds will help to provide food assistance to people across the country whose lives have been severely impacted by one of the worst natural disasters in Pakistan’s history. “BHP Billiton is committed to helping communities where we operate, particularly in times of need. We are proud to support the work of the World Food Programme.” said J. Michael Yeager, chief executive of BHP Billiton Petroleum. The company has operated the Zamzama gas field in the Dadu district of Sindh province since 1998.
Oklahoma City-LSB Industries Inc. reports that the Golsen Family LLC (GFLLC) has established a trading plan under which some 100,000 shares of LSB stock can be sold during a one-year period beginning Sept. 16, 2010. The stock price cannot be less than $19 per share. The plan is part of the GFLLC long-term estate and tax planning strategy. All of the outstanding membership interests in GFLLC are beneficially owned, directly or indirectly, by Jack Golsen (LSB CEO and chairman of the board) and members of his family, including Barry Golsen (president and member of the board) and Steven Golsen (president of certain subsidiaries of the company).
Washington-Both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) have agreed, at the prodding of Navistar, to take a look at claims that diesel trucks with selective catalytic reduction (SCR) can “cheat” on emissions control requirements by continuing to drive without diesel exhaust fluid (DEF). According to Navistar, a critic of SCR and DEF has finalized an agreement with EPA to dismiss three lawsuits on the condition that EPA re-examine whether trucks with this latest emissions-control technology are able to cheat. In the suits, in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Navistar claimed EPA had failed to consider that SCR might not reduce tailpipe emissions as intended. In the first step of the process, at Navistar’s urging, EPA, along with CARB, held a public workshop in July to address issues raised by Navistar. CARB has since announced it is considering tightening up or shortening the time or mileage that a vehicle would be allowed to operate when out of DEF. At the workshop Navistar presented a third-party study that concluded new commercial vehicles equipped with SCR continue to operate effectively when urea is not present. At such times, according to Navistar, the vehicles throw off levels of NOx as much as 10 times higher than when urea is present. Spokeswoman Karen Caesar said in the press that CARB is currently “taking into consideration the comments we received at the workshop and afterwards as we move forward,” she said. “However, it’s still unclear at this time whether we will actually put out new guidelines for the next model year.”
Boston-The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) and The Coalition for Buzzards Bay (CBB) have joined in a long-discussed lawsuit to expedite cleanup of Cape Cod coastal waterways by holding federal and county authorities accountable for reducing nitrogen pollution, which the groups consider a present and growing threat to the fragile bays and estuaries that support the cape’s economy. The suit charges that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not fulfilled its legal requirements under the federal Clean Water Act to adequately permit and regulate the discharge of nitrogen into the cape’s waters. The complaint against EPA focuses on how the sources are defined and regulated, but there is no mention of agriculture runoff or other non-point sources. According to the suit, septic systems, stormwater drainage, and wastewater treatment facilities through groundwater currently account for the majority of controllable nitrogen inputs into the bays on the Cape. These discharges are not subject to the stringent controls required under EPA’s permitting program for direct, or “point” sources. The suit maintains that EPA violated both the Clean Water Act and the Administrative Procedure Act when it approved 13 nitrogen pollution budgets across the Cape that did not identify these sources as point sources, and therefore did not seek to reduce their contribution to nitrogen pollution, as required by law. Additionally, the suit asserts that EPA, the Cape Cod Commission, and the Barnstable County Commission have failed to fulfill their obligations to implement an area-wide Water Quality Management Plan, also in violation of the Clean Water Act. The plaintiffs are calling for the Commissions and EPA to fulfill their obligations to update the plan and implement the required remedial actions. The plan, which was published in 1978, identified nitrogen pollution as a serious threat to the cape’s water resources, and was intended to provide a comprehensive approach to improve water quality and wastewater disposal problems on the Cape. CLF and CBB have issued a 60-day notice of intent to sue. “The destruction of Cape Cod’s bays and estuaries must not be allowed to continue unchecked,” said John Kassel, foundation president. “Decades of foot-dragging are now threatening the very lifeblood of the cape. We know the culprit and we know the solution. We need the Obama administration to prioritize cleanup of this treasured resource as it has with the Chesapeake Bay, and for the EPA to step up to the plate and fulfill its legal obligation to control nitrogen pollution.”
Washington-The Fertilizer Institute (TFI) is dismissing as “not in the real world” research at North Carolina State University raising the possibility of fertilizer being converted into a toxic form by sea creatures. In a study published last month, N.C. State researchers show that water fleas take up nitrates and nitrites and convert them into nitric oxide, which can be toxic to many organisms. The study, published in PLoS ONE, shows that the fleas in water were plagued with developmental and reproductive problems consistent with nitric oxide toxicity even at what would be considered low concentrations. According to Dr. Gerald LeBlanc, professor of environmental and molecular toxicology at N.C. State and an author of the paper, this raises questions about the effect these chemicals may have on other organisms’ toxicology. LeBlanc conceded that additional research will be needed to explore those questions. Bill Herz, TFI vice president of scientific programs, dismissed this research as “an in vitro experiment trying to replicate real world conditions using surrogates.” Herz added, “It’s a deliberate exposure of organisms that is not a real pathway (because) it takes a fair amount of energy to go from nitrate to nitrite, and nitrite is not a typical byproduct of fertilizer loss. This nitrite exposure is very hypothetical, and you have to have conditions that are not often found in fresh water conditions.” In the report, LeBlanc labeled some of the study’s results as surprising. “There’s only limited evidence to suggest that animals could convert nitrates and nitrites to nitric oxide, although plants can,” he said. “Since animals and plants don’t have the same cellular machinery for this conversion, it appears animals use different machinery for this conversion to occur.” There were even toxic effects at low nitrite concentrations showing negative effects to water fleas at approximately 0.3 milligrams per liter where concentrations fall within 1 to 2 milligrams per liter.
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