Fertilizer Availabity Impacted by Geopolitics

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is still ongoing, though it has faded from headlines. What has not changed is the challenge of sourcing fertilizer from the region. Stone X, Vice President of Fertilizer, Josh Linville, explains the key factors still impacting availability.

“If you look at it, Russia has still been one of our biggest suppliers of like, nitrogen urea. They were our single biggest supplier last year, continue to be that this year, UAN, they account for half of the tons that we import. So really no change there. And it's a scary situation when you have a war like that. That really doesn't even make the headline news anymore. That gives you an idea of how tough the world is today.”

Linville says that global nitrogen is still a possibility.

“I still think peace between those two nations could be the linchpin to global nitrogen. You get Russia relations opening back up with the rest of the world. That could be beneficial. If you can get Russian gas to start flowing back to Europe and get that nitrogen production back online, that would be massively influential, beneficial to the world. I still think it is an incredibly low probability event, but it could be a massive impact if and when it does happen.”

There is currently no fertilizer trade between China and the United States following tariffs put in place during President Donald Trump's first administration. At one time, there was enough product coming in to support a two tier trading system, but it has been years since we've seen that, acccording to Linville.