U.S. Gulf: Like the week before, urea started the week stable and moved up on Thursday. Most put the market early in the week at $525/st FOB, but said by close of business on Thursday it had reached as high as $543/st for prompt trades. One player was reportedly quoting as high as $555/st FOB.
Prompt barges were reported to be very hard to find, and first-half April were also reported to be moving up fast.
With extremely high temperatures and generally good weather over much of the nation, sources expected that the current run-up in prices might stick this time and not retreat as it has recently. Sources said buyers from northern areas have been coming into the market to fill up and are finding less product than expected.
Indeed, sources said the perception is that this is an early spring and buyers are starting to want product right away, not months away. Sources said first-half April prices were $510/st FOB and moving fast toward prompt pricing, and May was called $485/st FOB.
January imports were down 37 percent, to 642,051 st from the year-ago 1 million st. The drop for July-January was not as dramatic – 13 percent – to 3.64 million st, down from 4.17 million st.
Eastern Cornbelt: Granular urea prices had reportedly inched up to $560-$580/st FOB regional terminals, with the low quoted in the Illinois market and the upper end out of northern Ohio terminals. Sources tagged the Cincinnati urea market at the $560/st FOB level early in the week.
Western Cornbelt: Granular urea pricing continued to tick up in the Western Cornbelt region. Sources quoted the dealer market in the $560-$570/st FOB range out of most regional terminals last week, with the upper end of the range tagged at the $585/st FOB mark out of warehouses in western Iowa.
Southern Plains: Sources quoted the granular urea market firmly in the $565-$575/st range FOB Enid and Inola, Okla. One source said product availability has improved, although Koch alerted customers on March 9 that it had suspended urea loading at its Enid facility. March 7 urea postings from Koch included $575/st FOB Enid and Inola/Catoosa.
South Central: Urea pricing volatility continued to be the topic of choice among fertilizer contacts in the region. Most sources quoted the terminal market solidly at the $550/st FOB level in the region last week, up another notch from last report.
Southeast: Granular urea pricing in the Southeast was up significantly from last report. Sources quoted the dealer market in a broad range at $540-$570/st FOB port terminals last week, with the low confirmed for some spot tons out of the Norfolk, Va., market at midweek. Dealer reference levels were reported in the $560-$575/st FOB range out of most regional terminals as the week advanced.
India: Late last week IPL called a tender to close March 23. Sources say the tender call is less a signal that India needs the urea to jump-start its application season – it doesn’t – but rather more a desire to lock up the low-cost April and May urea production from Iran.
Reportedly, India is looking for prices no higher than $400/mt CFR to the west coast. This pricing idea is in line with the trend of lower prices seen last year.
In August 2011, offers in the IPL tender were in the $520s/mt CFR. By December of last year, the lowest price had dropped to $444/mt CFR, with an average price of $470/mt CFR.
The steady drop in the delivered price came as more Iranian urea became available for purchase. Indian buyers were more than willing to deal with the complexities of currency conversion if it meant dramatically lower prices for urea.
In the December tender, the Arab producers in the Gu