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 rebounding
Egypt FOB (granular)
$470–480/t
CME Urea Granular FOB Egypt front-month ≈ $475.50/t (7–8 Jul), rebounding from mid-Jun lows near $420/t; renewed tanker safety concerns near Oman restoring risk premium. Subscription-grade assessments (Argus/ICIS) required for confirmed physical level — CME futures indicative.
Ammoniam/m easing (Jul contract unconfirmed)
Tampa CFR contract
$775/t
June Yara–Mosaic contract confirmed at $775/t CFR, down $50/t from May's $825. July contract not yet publicly confirmed as of 8 Jul; trade press signals (Profercy, QCIntel) suggest possible +$25/t jump on North African supply squeeze — cannot independently verify. Monthly benchmark — paywalled for exact figure.
DAPw/w broadly stable
NOLA FOB barge (July futures)
$755–760/st
CME DAP FOB NOLA front-month ≈ $757.50/st (7–8 Jul), stabilising after falling from $782.50 (25 Jun); Aug $740, Sep $737.50 on the curve. Indicative — not a confirmed physical assessment.
Potash (MOP)stable to firm
Brazil CFR granular
$405–415/t
No fresh public citations as of 8 Jul — holding prior indications (~$405–410/t CFR; secondary series $412.50, 25 Jun). Not exchange-traded; subscription-only for confirmed level.
TTF natgasw/w broadly stable (easing from 6 Jul peak)
Front-month — European ammonia cost driver
€43.5–45.5/MWh
Front-month ≈ €44.0/MWh (8 Jul), easing after three-week high of €45.4 on 6 Jul; €42.57 on 29 Jun → w/w still up ~3.4%. European heat wave and below-average storage (~49% vs ~60% a year ago) underpin price; the modest pullback is off the 6 Jul heat-driven peak, not any easing in Gulf risk — tensions have since re-escalated with the 8 July ceasefire collapse.
Current reading: The relief for UK growers is real but showing signs of stalling. Egypt FOB granular urea — a core UK import reference — fell sharply from its ~$800/t May spike but has rebounded toward $470–480/t as tanker safety concerns near Oman revive a risk premium, even as the broader ceasefire holds. Ammonia's June Tampa contract eased to $775/t (down $50 on May), though trade signals point to a possible July jump on North African supply tightening. Britain's exposure remains structural, not cyclical: CF Fertilisers' Billingham and Ince closures (2022–23) gutted domestic capacity, leaving the UK import-dependent on ammonium nitrate from Russia, Lithuania and Egypt — the very routes the war disrupted. The autumn buying window opens in late summer, and the swing factor now is gas: TTF front-month has eased from its 6 Jul peak of €45.4 to ~€44/MWh — still up on the week — which sets European AN production economics and therefore the price UK farmers lock in for the season. The urea bounce is the clearest warning that the war premium is fragile rather than fading cleanly.
Watch next: Whether the urea rebound extends toward the ~$500/t area or fades depending on how the renewed Gulf escalation plays out, and whether a July Tampa ammonia contract confirms above June's $775/t. For the UK specifically, watch TTF into the late-summer buying window: a sustained move above ~€45/MWh would keep European ammonium-nitrate economics tight just as growers lock in autumn tonnage, with little domestic capacity to fall back on. India / China urea tenders and any export curbs remain the physical swing factor. Sourcing note: real-time Argus / ICIS assessments are subscription-only and the free World Bank Pink Sheet lags ~a month — these are publicly-cited indications, and the urea figure in particular is indicative, not a confirmed 8 July assessment.
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 8 Jul 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.