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 firmer — 1-month high on Hormuz / LNG
Front-month — European ammonia cost driver
€47–50/MWh
Front-month ≈ €48/MWh (10 Jul), having touched a one-month high near €50 on the Hormuz re-escalation, a technical incident at Qatar's Ras Laffan LNG complex, the European heat wave and below-average storage (~51% vs ~60% a year ago); up sharply from ~€44 on 8 Jul. Asian JKM firm ~$17.5/MMBtu keeps a premium that pulls US cargoes east rather than into European storage.
Current reading: The Hormuz war premium was draining out of fertilizer — but is now finding a floor. Egypt FOB granular urea — which spiked toward $800/t in May — fell sharply before rebounding toward $470–480/t as renewed tanker safety concerns near Oman restoke a risk premium (the fall was part fading war premium, part post-spring demand lull; the rebound is the same forces in reverse). DAP has steadied near $757.50/st on the CME curve, recovering from the $750/st July trough, while potash holds firm near $405–415/t. Ammonia's June Tampa contract settled at $775/t; trade signals suggest a possible +$25/t jump for July on North African supply tightening, not yet confirmed. The more durable European risk remains TTF gas: having pushed to a one-month high near €50/MWh on 10 Jul on the Hormuz re-escalation, a Ras Laffan LNG incident, heat-wave demand and low storage (~51% vs ~60% a year ago), it sits around €48/MWh — up sharply on the week. TTF, not the war premium, is the lasting driver of European ammonia economics — when gas is dear, BASF, Yara and OCI idle EU plants and import finished product. The acute, war-driven spike may be trying to re-form even as the chronic gas-cost pressure quietly rebuilds.
Watch next: Whether the urea rebound extends 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. Structurally, watch TTF: a sustained move above ~€45/MWh into the autumn 2026 application window would revive the idle-and-import reflex just as EU farmers buy for the season. India / China urea tender activity and any export curbs remain the physical swing factor. Sourcing note: real-time Argus / ICIS / 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 for Europe
Europe's fertilizer story runs through one chart: TTF natural gas. European ammonia plants — BASF Antwerp, Yara Sluiskil, OCI Geleen, BASF Ludwigshafen — are all gas-cost-bound. When TTF rises, the marginal cost of producing ammonia in Europe exceeds the cost of importing it. Plants idle. Production falls. Europe inhales more Gulf urea and ammonia at exactly the moment those Gulf flows are constrained by Hormuz.
The 2022 gas crisis demonstrated this dynamic at speed: European nitrogen output fell roughly 70% at peak, and the continent absorbed the slack from Russian and Gulf imports. The Iran war reactivates the same loop with a much tighter physical supply ceiling on the other end. EU farmers face the same Q3 2026 buying-window timing problem as their UK counterparts, with the additional risk that European producer prices remain hostage to TTF for the duration of the war.
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.