{"id":22664,"date":"2026-03-31T10:22:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erenstar.ae\/?p=22664"},"modified":"2026-03-31T10:25:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:25:43","slug":"urea-outages-blocked-shipments-surpass-2mnt-on-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erenstar.ae\/index.php\/2026\/03\/31\/urea-outages-blocked-shipments-surpass-2mnt-on-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Urea outages, blocked shipments surpass 2mnt on war"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The disruptions to shipping in the Middle East and curtailments in production due to ongoing hostilities have seen more than 2mn t of urea cut from supply chains this month, the equivalent of more than 12pc of total global consumption.
War-triggered outages could amount to the equivalent of at least 1.5mn t of urea in March, without accounting for Iranian plants, according to Argus estimates, with 870,000t of urea, or more, loaded aboard vessels in the Mideast Gulf yet to cross the strait of Hormuz. Total annual urea consumption is about 200mn t globally \u2014 or nearly 17mn t\/month. The figures for the cuts in supply are estimates and subject to change, and there has been no confirmation of specifics from the producers themselves. All of the outages are estimated using the relevant plant’s urea capacity and a run rate of 90pc of capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most significant outage has been in India, where surging LNG costs saw the government reduce gas supply to about 70pc of the fertilizer sector’s needs, which will probably see March output fall to 1.7mn-1.8mn t, down from usual levels of 2.5mn-2.6mn t. State-owned QatarEnergy (QE) announced on 3 March that it will halt production at its 5.8mn t\/yr urea facility, but it is not clear when exactly QE halted output, with vessel loadings continuing until early last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of Bangladesh’s urea plants are probably down, after LNG costs jumped, cutting more than 200,000t from its supply chain so far \u2014 and prompting an import tender closing in early April. The situation in Iran is not clear, with conflicting reports from market participants. If all Iranian urea plants had halted on 18 March, after a significant attack on the country’s South Pars gas field, then this could translate into just over 265,000t of lost urea production. But a halt in output immediately after the war began could have seen as much as 645,000t of supply lost. Some production has possibly continued, with a fresh deal emerging earlier today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And continued drone strikes are understood have hit three urea-producing facilities in Russia in the past month, probably cutting just over 85,000t of the country’s urea output in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Kpler vessel-tracking data show 20 ships loaded with 870,000t of urea stranded in the Mideast Gulf, loaded with urea from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain waiting to traverse the strait of Hormuz. About 55pc of that product was loaded by Saudi Arabia’s Sabic, with just under 40pc from Qatar. Sabic is currently loading the Vivian Trader at Jubail, while QE most recently loaded the Lila Incheon on 23 March, Kpler data show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are no vessels shown loaded with urea from the UAE’s 2mn t\/yr Fertil plant, which could reflect a lack of available automatic identification system tracking data, rather than no ships loaded with product from Ruwais.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Urea prices have surged in the wake of the US-Israel conflict on Iran, up by as much as 65pc on pre-war levels in some markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Argus Media \u2013 Fertilizers<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The disruptions to shipping in the Middle East and curtailments in production due to ongoing hostilities have seen more than<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fertiliser","category-general"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/erenstar.ae\/index.php\/author\/admin\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Fertilizers<\/a> General<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"The disruptions to shipping in the Middle East and curtailments in production due to ongoing hostilities have seen more than","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erenstar.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erenstar.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erenstar.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erenstar.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erenstar.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22664"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/erenstar.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22670,"href":"https:\/\/erenstar.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22664\/revisions\/22670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erenstar.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erenstar.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erenstar.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}