Butadiene - C4s US

US ammonia prices have been on a steady decline in the three months leading into early May, but recent transactions in the Black Sea have seen the price increase slightly a result of ongoing international natural gas curtailments as well as plant turnarounds and unexpected outages.

On 8 May the benchmark Black Sea ammonia price climbed to $515/tonne FOB for June loading, up $4/tonne on May business. This could affect  future, and possibly even June, contracts, with the Tampa pricing settling at a level of $590/tonne FOB – still a sizeable drop considering that February contracts settled at $655/tonne CFR Tampa.

The downward movement came as a result of ongoing delays in the US agricultural industry caused by unfavourable cool and wet weather.

With the pushing back of spring applications of ammonia, a preferred nutrient of corn farmers, there has been less refill demand and has weighed on not only contract discussion through the three prior months but has impacted barge deliveries and pricing for those cargos.

Ammonia production in Trinidad continued to be curtailed during this period as producers were limited by natural gas deliveries from the National Gas Co. In March the rate of reduction was running between 10-15% while April saw levels at 20-25%.

Beginning May 11 through May 15, energy officials said that level will be about 15% due to planned repair to the supply platforms. Further reductions in gas supply have been issued as Trinidad expects from September to early October, there will be a significant increase as more substantial work on offshore installations will bump the rate between 20-30%.

Updated to mid-May 2013