Index:
Overview
Nitrogen
Phosphorous
Potash
Biologicals and Specialty Products
Other (CapEx, Low-Carbon N, Bromine and Crop Protection, Sulfur Pricing)
Overview
The Q1 2026 earnings cycle for the global fertilizer players was volatile because of the conflict in the Persian Gulf and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz plus a market that was already tight.
Mosaic, Nutrien, CF Industries, ICL and Yara are navigating a dynamic where the following were all disrupted at the same time:
~35% of global urea trade
~25% of ammonia and phosphate trade
~50% of seaborne sulfur
~20% of global LNG flows
Source: Nutrien Q1 2026 Presentation
The result is a frequently discussed shock across all three macronutrients (plus crop protection), and layered on top of a phosphate market that was already in deficit.
Over the last two weeks, the largest publicly traded fertilizer companies all held earnings calls and fireside chats where their executives commentated on market dynamics in nitrogen, phosphate, potash, specialty nutrition, and the adjacent supply chains and I wanted to aggregate and summarize the stand out commentary and insights.
1. Nitrogen
Coming into 2026, nitrogen was not a balanced market, it was already tight.
Bert Frost at CF Industries emphasized this on their Q1 earnings call:
"The global nitrogen supply demand balance has been structurally tight for more than a year. Global nitrogen demand has been robust. At the same time, supply has been constrained by geopolitical conflicts, elevated natural gas prices in Europe, export restrictions and declining natural gas availability in several key producing regions."
The Strait closure added a supply shock on top.
The scale of what is offline is an important aspect surrounding the Nitrogen market.
Frost shared details plant by plant:
"31 ammonia plants in the Middle East have been directly impacted by the conflict or shut down production, 49 plants in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are either curtailed or shut down due to constrained feedstock. And in Russia, at least 20 to 21 plants have been associated with being droned by Ukraine."
Ken Seitz, CEO at Nutrien framed the three-stage path of getting back to normal:
opening the Strait and clearing the inventory caught upstream of it
then restarting plants that have been idled but not damaged
then physically rebuilding what was hit
The third bucket is the slowest and probably longer term impact than what many have thought. Seitz stated that:
"the damage in the South Pars gas field, 20% of the Qatar LNG facility that won't be back up online for 3 to 5 years. That has serious implications, obviously, for these huge export markets, Europe and South Asia and Southeast Asia that are dependent on Qatar gas."
Demand isn’t necessarily adjusting downward to meet this.
Yara estimated demand destruction in Europe of "5% to 10%, something like that," but interestingly, India is going the other direction. CF expects India urea imports of 10 to 13 million tonnes in 2026, roughly double 2024 and well above last year's 10 million. The Indian government has "established a task force now on nitrogen and devising plans in light of how much natural gas they import," per Seitz, because Indian plants themselves are running at around 70% utilization on imported LNG. Bangladesh has shut down its four nitrogen plants entirely for lack of gas.
The countries that historically brought product into the market are also pulling back.
China's urea exports are still restricted, expected to release later in Q2 but unlikely to reach the 5 million tonnes that came out in 2025.
Russia has implemented export restrictions.
Egypt this week added a $90 per metric ton duty on nitrogen fertilizer exports.
Each decision above removes nitrogen tons from the market.
Yara reported urea up 47% since February and FOB Egypt up 77%. NOLA sits around $600 per short ton, the lowest valued urea market in the world right now.
CF’s Bert Frost explained:
"the North American market is satisfied. We've imported sufficient volumes. CF has produced and kept those tons in market." The arbitrage is being arbitraged. "You're going to see vessels that have brought tons in, put on a barge, put on a vessel and sent out because of that price arbitrage."
Given that North America is planting and moving most of it’s product through June, prices will likely move upward to the global market as we enter Q3.
On the cost side, North American producers are structurally advantaged.
CF realized Q1 gas costs of $4.50 per MMBtu, elevated by a $7-plus February settle, with current Henry Hub trading around $2.60 and a flat forward curve. European TTF is at roughly $16.
CF's Chris Bohn also made the point:
"Low cost isn't just low-cost feedstock like what we have, but it's also breaking out what other costs are involved in that from transport costs to even operational efficiency."
CF generated $983 million of EBITDA in Q1, Nutrien's nitrogen segment delivered $482 million on a 92% ammonia operating rate, and Yara's total EBITDA of $896 million was up 40% year over year on what management called "pre-war markets."
Q2 is when the conflict really will show up in the P&L. None of these companies guide explicitly on urea prices, but Seitz acknowledged on the Nutrien call that elevated prices could persist into 2027.
Frost didn’t seem optimistic on any short term outcomes, saying "I don't think we untangle this."
The base case for the back half of 2026 is tight, with the upside risk being a longer war and the downside risk being a fast Strait reopening combined with aggressive Chinese exports.
2. Phosphate
Nitrogen was tight, but the phosphate dynamics occurred in a market that was already short.
Bruce Bodine, CEO of Mosaic, stated:
"Even before this Persian Gulf conflict, phosphate was tight. It was driving demand destruction. Just because there wasn't enough supply, it's only been further exacerbated by this with a boxed-in barrier of farmer affordability….there is not going to be enough phosphate to meet global demand."
The big problem is the raw ingredients with roughly half of seaborne sulfur originating in the Middle East. For context, in a tonne of MAP or DAP, the three major input costs are phosphate rock, sulfur (converted to sulfuric acid to acidulate the rock), and ammonia. As a rough rule of thumb on a normalized cost basis, phosphate rock runs around 30-35% of finished cost, sulfur runs around 25-35%, and ammonia runs around 20-25%, with the remainder coming from energy, overheard etc.
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