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 pressure across the hemisphere is easing — but showing a second pulse. Global urea (Egypt FOB ~$470–480/t) fell sharply from its May spike but is now rebounding as renewed tanker safety concerns near Oman revive a risk premium, a reminder that the war premium is fragile rather than fading cleanly. June Tampa ammonia settled at $775/t (down $50 on May), with trade signals pointing to a possible July jump on North African supply tightening. DAP has steadied near $757.50/st — NOLA-benchmarked, so directly relevant to US buyers — stabilising after a brief dip to $750. The US retains its structural edge (CF Industries' Donaldsonville and Yazoo City capacity, the Tampa benchmark), but the swing risk sits with import-dependent neighbours: Brazil is buying potash around $405–415/t CFR ahead of the Safrinha, and Mexico leans on Gulf nitrogen flows. The one line still elevated is TTF gas (~€44/MWh, easing from this week's €45.4 peak) — a European cost driver, but a reminder that the nitrogen complex's cost floor is energy, and any supply disruption that re-fires the war premium compounds that floor for the hemisphere's net importers.
Watch next: Whether urea extends its rebound toward ~$500/t or fades depending on how the renewed Gulf escalation plays out, and whether a July Tampa ammonia contract confirms above June's $775/t — the Western-Hemisphere benchmark. Watch the CME DAP / urea curve for the US buy-side signal, Brazilian potash CFR into the Safrinha, and TTF gas as the global nitrogen cost floor. The squeeze on hemisphere food security runs less through US farmer prices than through import-dependent neighbours' access to affordable nitrogen. Sourcing note: real-time Argus / Green Markets 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 in the Americas
The Americas have a real cushion the rest of the world lacks: US domestic nitrogen capacity at scale (CF Industries' Donaldsonville and Yazoo City urea / ammonia complexes), Canadian potash (Nutrien in Saskatchewan), and a hemisphere food-export role that makes US grain itself the buffer for many import-dependent countries.
That cushion is real but it isn't infinite. Brazil — the world's third-largest agricultural exporter — imports the bulk of its nitrogen needs, heavily from Gulf and Russian sources. Mexico, Caribbean nations, and Central American agriculture all run import-dependent inputs through Gulf shipping. And US food exports themselves carry hemisphere food security on their back, which means when US farmers face higher input costs, the second-order effects show up first in São Paulo, Mexico City and Port-au-Prince — not in Houston.
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.