“After overwhelming demand, Nutrien have closed their order book for UAN Fill and are now moving prices up by a minimum of $10-20/st across their producing locations,” according to a statement issued by the company late July 7. “The recent rally in corn prices has spurred strong demand across the Cornbelt.”
An uptick in Ag segment results helped boost CHS Inc.’s net income for the third-quarter ending May 31, 2020, to $97.6 million from the year-ago $54.6 million. Revenues were $7.2 billion, down from $8.5 billion.
Ag pretax earnings were $95.4 million, up from the year-ago $21.1 million. Improved margins and volumes across much of the Ag segment resulted from more favorable weather conditions for spring planting compared to third quarter of fiscal year 2019. Improved trade relations between the United States and foreign trading partners was also cited.
LSB Industries Inc., Oklahoma City, said July 6 that its Board of Directors has acted to implement a shareholders right agreement which is to reduce the likelihood of an ownership change by deterring any person or group of affiliated or associated persons from acquiring beneficial ownership of 4.9 percent or more of the outstanding common shares.
LSB said the purpose for the change is to preserve its net operating loss and other tax advantages. It said these are substantially limited if it experiences an ownership change.
Work on Talcher urea and coal gasification project, which was awarded to China’s Wuhuan Engineering Company Ltd. in September 2019, has been halted because of technical reasons, people aware of the development said, according to the Hindustan Times. The Chinese firm is unable to immediately mobilize technicians, equipment and workers at the site because of disruption in air connectivity amid the Covid-19 pandemic and visa issues, they added, requesting anonymity.
The recent India-China military standoff at the border may also have some indirect impact on the project, but it is too early to come to a definitive conclusion at this stage on the extent of the impact, the people cited above said.
Third-quarter Tampa sulfur contracts have reportedly been settling at $57.50/lt, up $3.50/lt from second-quarter pricing. However, not all new contracts have been concluded.
Yara International ASA’s Tringen I ammonia plant in Trinidad will go down in August for maintenance and will restart when market conditions improve. Originally, Yara had planned to take the plant down in early July, but cited “new opportunities for competitive export” in July, so it opted to defer the down time.
Yara permanently idled one Trinidad plant earlier this year. Nutrien Ltd. has two Trinidad ammonia plants that are temporarily idled.
