Urea prices up 10% weekly basis amid Hormuz tension
Closure of Strait of Hormuz affects more than 30% of urea shipments
ISTANBUL
The price of urea rose by 10% on Tuesday, hitting highest level since November 2022, on a weekly basis amid the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Urea price, at $583 per ton as of 2015GMT, also increased by 29.3% on a monthly basis and more than 50% from the beginning of the year.
Kirill Dmitriev, the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and special envoy of the Russian president, warned that the fertilizer, and therefore agriculture markets, are heavily exposed to disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.
Last week, on the US social media platform X, he said that around 44% of sulfur, 31% of urea, 18% of ammonia and 15% of phosphates -- all key fertilizer components -- transit the region.
Sulfur prices also rose by 13.99% on a weekly and 20.44% on a monthly basis.
The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most critical transit way, particularly for energy field, with around 20 million barrels of oil passing through it daily.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had previously announced the closure of the strait to transit following the start of the US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28.
