The oil market sees the chokepoint. The fertilizer market is where it lands.
Hormuz, the Red Sea and the Black Sea aren't just oil chokepoints. They're fertilizer chokepoints. Five nations on the wrong side of these routes — Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Russia — between them control disproportionate shares of global urea, ammonia and potash exports. When Hormuz tightens, the price of growing food in the rest of the world goes up before the price of driving across it does.
This page tracks the operative numbers: urea, ammonia, DAP, potash and TTF natural gas. The first four are the world's nitrogen and phosphate benchmarks. TTF is included because European ammonia capacity is gas-cost-bound — when TTF rises, European plants idle and the region becomes more Gulf-dependent. Together these readings are the operational layer beneath the editorial argument made in our From Hormuz to Hunger analysis.
Fertilizer Watch
Editorial · updated weekly
Ureaw/w rising
Egypt FOB (granular)
$480–510/t
Argus / Reuters citations (May 2026)
Ammoniaw/w broadly stable
Tampa CFR contract
$650–690/t
Green Markets / CRU citations (May 2026)
DAPw/w rising
NOLA FOB barge
$720–750/t
Argus / Reuters citations (May 2026)
Potash (MOP)w/w broadly stable
Brazil CFR granular
$385–410/t
Argus / Bloomberg citations (May 2026)
TTF natgasw/w rising
Front-month — European ammonia cost driver
€42–46/MWh
ICE / Reuters (May 2026)
Current reading: UK farmers are at the sharp end of this. CF Fertilisers' Billingham and Ince closures (2022–23) gutted domestic urea capacity, leaving the UK structurally import-dependent on ammonium nitrate from Russia, Lithuania and Egypt — exactly the routes the war is now disrupting. The autumn fertiliser buying window starts in late summer, which means Q3 2026 lock-in prices will be set just as Gulf supply pressure peaks. There is no easy substitution at that timeline.
Watch next: Watch the next World Bank Pink Sheet release (early June 2026), Argus weekly summaries, IFA Q2 commentary, and any further India / China export restrictions. Aramco CEO Amin Nasser's mid-June timeline is the implicit benchmark — if Hormuz flows aren't substantially restored by then, the UK autumn fertiliser window will close with prices locked in at crisis levels.
Initial seed values for first-week publication; weekly editorial refresh from World Bank Pink Sheet (monthly, free), Argus public citations, Reuters / Bloomberg quotes, IFA quarterly summaries, and USDA fertilizer outlook. Gold-standard real-time prices (CRU, Argus, ICIS, Profercy) are paywalled — ranges are aggregated from publicly-cited figures, not republished feeds. Editorial reading is our market interpretation. Updated 27 May 2026.
Why it matters for the UK
The UK is structurally exposed in a way that doesn't have an easy fix. CF Fertilisers closed Billingham and Ince in 2022–23, ending UK production of ammonium nitrate at scale. The country is now import-dependent on ammonium nitrate from Russia, Lithuania, Egypt and the Netherlands — exactly the corridors the Iran war is currently disrupting. Russia and Belarus together supply more than a third of UK ammonium nitrate in normal years.
The timing is the cruellest part. The UK fertiliser buying window for autumn 2026 application opens in late summer, which means Q3 2026 lock-in prices will be set just as Gulf supply pressure peaks. UK arable farmers face the choice between locking in at war prices or risking running short of nitrogen for the autumn-sown crop. There is no domestic substitution available at that timescale.
The chain
How a Hormuz chokepoint becomes a food-security event, in seven operational steps.
Hormuz / Red Sea disruption throttles Gulf urea and ammonia exports — Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, five producer nations on the wrong side of the chokepoint.
Global benchmark prices spike. World Bank Pink Sheet, April 2026: nitrogen up ~70% across the board; US urea +52% since the strikes.
European ammonia plants idle as TTF natural gas rises — production cost exceeds the cost of importing finished product.
Import-dependent regions (South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil, the Sahel) face fertilizer scarcity and price shocks they cannot absorb at consumer level.
Non-linear yield collapse on the next crop cycle: a 10% nitrogen reduction produces ~25% yield loss in well-fertilized agriculture — and 30–50% on the world's most marginal soils.
Food prices rise in import-dependent countries. Sovereign-debt and export-ban doom loops accelerate.
If the blockade extends past the August threshold identified in our Hormuz to Hunger model, the damage transitions from one missed crop cycle into compounding multi-cycle collapse.
Read the full analysis
From Hormuz to Hunger — Policy Brief + Technical Report (v4)
The systems analysis behind this page — nine causal chains, scenario-weighted estimates, historical calibration against nine famines, and policy recommendations. Free, no signup required.