Ammonia

Ammonia is the foundation of the entire nitrogen industry. Almost every nitrogen fertilizer (urea, ammonium nitrate, UAN, nitric acid, and the nitrogen in NPK blends) is ammonia upgraded, and ammonia itself is made by the Haber-Bosch process from natural gas and air. World production is roughly 185 to 200 million tonnes a year, but the traded market is much smaller: only around 20 million tonnes move by sea, because most ammonia is consumed on the same site that makes it, piped straight into a downstream urea or nitrates plant. That makes ammonia an unusual commodity, enormous in volume but thin in seaborne trade, and acutely sensitive to the cost of gas, which is 60 to 80 percent of cash cost.

The benchmark is the Tampa CFR contract, historically settled monthly between Yara, the Norwegian producer, and Mosaic, the US phosphate maker that uses ammonia to make DAP. That single negotiated number anchors the global ammonia price, and Platts amended its CFR Tampa assessment in 2025 to reflect only the latest Yara-Mosaic settlement. The Tampa contract is volatile: it settled around 590 dollars a tonne in late 2025 before slipping, then was overwhelmed in 2026 when the Strait of Hormuz crisis cut Gulf supply, Iran halted ammonia production, and Qatar suspended output, tightening an already small seaborne market.

The newest story is energy. Ammonia carries hydrogen densely and burns without emitting carbon dioxide, so it is being developed as a carbon-free marine fuel and as a way to ship hydrogen across oceans. Low-carbon ammonia projects, blue (gas plus carbon capture) and green (electrolysis from renewable power), are advancing, including Gulf Coast and Middle East schemes targeting commercial operation later in the 2020s. If even a fraction of shipping and power demand materializes, it would dwarf today's fertilizer-driven trade and rewire the market entirely.