Fertilizer market anticipates little impact from updated Russian export quotas

Many fertilizer market participants are largely unbothered by the recent announcement of new fertilizer export quotas from Russia to countries outside the Eurasian Economic Union.

“We don’t expect any negative impact on fertilizers export,” a Russian market source said.

A second market participant, a trader, also didn’t express any expectation of a major impact. “It’s a regular procedure,” he said.

The quotas are largely a slight adjustment of restrictions already in place. On Oct. 19, the Russian government set limits of about 11.2 million mt of urea, UAN and AN and about 8 million mt of MAP/ DAP, NPK and NP fertilizers to run from Dec. 1, 2024, to May 31, 2025.

This is a roughly 10% decrease on the current urea, UAN, and AN limit of 12.5 million mt and approximately a 10% increase on the current MAP, NPK and NP limit of 7.3 million mt, according to data from S&P Global Commodity Insights. Both current limits are set to run from June 1-Nov. 30.

However, it remains uncertain whether the quotas will be met. “For the last couple of years, [the quotas have] been set so high that they didn’t impact anyone,” said a second trader.

Platts, part of Commodity Insights, assessed Russian-origin FOB bulk Baltic DAP at $562-$583/mt and FOB Baltic urea (prilled) at $320-$327/mt on Oct. 24.