Ukraine is buying more urea abroad than it produces domestically, and its own production is almost halving. Meanwhile, the world is moving in the opposite direction – within a single week, two countries announced multi-billion-dollar programmes to build their own production capacities.

Fertiliser imports exceed domestic production by 35%, and the gap for urea is even more pronounced: in the first quarter the country produced 123.5 thousand tonnes while importing 181 thousand tonnes. Moreover, 88% of imported urea came from just two countries – Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Domestic production is shrinking: the plants of the nitrogen holding Ostchem last year produced 1.57 million tonnes of fertilisers, which is 12.7% less than the previous year, while urea output fell by 42.3%.

The global logic is currently the opposite. Mexico, which imports about 75% of its mineral fertilisers and more than 80% of its urea, has launched a programme to reduce this dependence: the companies Fermachem and Gas y Petroquímica de Occidente are investing over USD 3.2 billion in the construction of two complexes for the production of urea and ammonia.

Almost simultaneously, the Indian government approved a new investment policy for urea production – the first major one in almost 14 years. It envisages the construction of 8–9 new gas-based plants with a total capacity of 10 million tonnes per year, involving private, state-owned companies and cooperatives.

As for the Odesa Portside Plant, which in its better years produced up to 950 thousand tonnes of urea and more than 1 million tonnes of ammonia annually, it has once again been put up for privatisation: the auction is scheduled for 19 October.

Reference source: http://surl.li/gheofghaertffffffff