By Ryan Hanrahan
Bloomberg’s Hallie Gu and Salma El Wardany reported that “global prices of key fertilizer ingredient urea have surged alongside escalating violence in the Middle East, which threatens to choke supplies of the crop nutrient from a significant producing and exporting region.”
“Nearly half of world’s urea exports are sourced from manufacturing facilities on the Persian Gulf, according to Bloomberg Intelligence, with recent strikes putting those supplies at risk,” Gu and El Wardany reported. “Egypt and Iran have already curtailed production, which alone were responsible for almost 20% of global urea trade last year, according to Chris Lawson, head of fertilizers at consulting firm CRU Group.”
“Urea, the world’s most commonly used nitrogen fertilizer, provides one of the essential nutrients that underpin global food production,” Gu and El Wardany reported. “US Gulf urea spot prices, a global benchmark, surged about 16% in the past week, according to Green Markets data, and prices in the Middle East also rallied 11%.”
Source : illinois.edu