Urea industry gathers port to ease inventory pressure

Inadequate domestic demand has led to a continuous decline in the price of urea during the period of spring farming. However, from the current orders, the actual transaction price of the manufacturers is inconsistent with the factory price. Seen from the Shandong market, the demand for local agriculture was at the tail end, industrial demand was weak, and some products were collected in Hong Kong. On April 10, the local mainstream transaction price fell to 2,050 yuan (t price, the same below), and the current price of individual orders has fallen below 2000. yuan. Compared to Shandong manufacturers, the days of Shanxi manufacturers are even more sad. Due to the lack of domestic demand, Jigang has become the only choice for Shanxi manufacturers.

The rice cultivation area is affected by the weather and the agricultural fertilizers in the two lakes are delayed for 15 to 20 days. Due to the significant reduction in the area of ​​early rice planting, the fertilizer season in rice growing areas will be postponed to June.

Although the domestic urea market has fallen into a quagmire, most manufacturers have kept their inventory at a normal level, and currently there is no parking maintenance wind. This month, the urea operating rate was as high as 90%, compared with 70% to 75% for the same period last year.

Despite the weak overall demand for domestic urea, the industry still maintains a relatively high operating rate, which has become a choice for some manufacturers to ease their inventory pressure. It is reported that at present, the total inventory of urea in domestic ports has exceeded 1 million tons, of which Yantai Port stocks are around 700,000 tons.

China's urea export window period is from July to October, and in mid-April this year, it has already completed such a huge amount of catch-up in advance, even taking into account the moderate relaxation of fertilizer export policy this year, the extension of small-package urea export period for one month and other favorable factors. However, this type of behavior is tantamount to dancing on the tip of the knife when the international urea supply is already oversupply and the decline has not yet reached the bottom. Last week, Yurii's bulk urea FOB price was 360-365 U.S. dollars, or 5 to 10 U.S. dollars; the Baltic Sea was 345 to 355 U.S. dollars, or 15 U.S. dollars.