Fertilizer prices split further this week, with urea extending its rebound even as phosphate and sulfur eased, all against a Strait of Hormuz picture that showed its first real, if fragile, signs of a traffic recovery. Below is a full breakdown of this week’s fertilizer price action and the drivers behind it.
Key Takeaways
- Urea extended its rebound, rising 4.65% on the week to $428.00/T and swinging to a 3.63% year-over-year gain — a sharp reversal from last week’s 6.51% year-over-year decline — as Gulf nitrogen exporters continue to navigate constrained Strait of Hormuz shipping capacity.
- DAP held essentially flat, dipping 0.32% to $790.00/T; it remains up 0.64% year-over-year as China’s phosphate export curbs — still covering an estimated 50–80% of the country’s export volumes — show no confirmed sign of lifting past August.
- Sulfur (CNY 8,769.00/T) eased 5.05% on the week but remains up an extraordinary 232.45% year-over-year, with Russia’s export ban on liquid, granulated, and lump sulfur confirmed in force through December 31, 2026.
- Strait of Hormuz traffic showed its first real signs of life in weeks: total transits rose more than 30% to 114 vessels for the week of August 17–23, and the standing vessel backlog eased to 383 ships from 449. The recovery remains fragile, though — daily counts stayed volatile (just three vessels crossed on August 23 alone) and traffic sits far below the roughly 85-vessel pre-crisis daily baseline.
- Diplomatic activity accelerated: Qatar brokered talks in Tehran on August 27, and Iran and Oman reportedly agreed on a temporary two-way maritime corridor — but President Trump said the same day that the U.S. blockade holds and “nothing is getting through,” and planned talks in Istanbul were postponed.
- Minor nutrients — Phosphorus, Magnesium, Manganese, and Soda Ash — stayed largely flat to lower week-over-week, holding near recent lows.
For the week ending August 31, 2026, nitrogen once again outran the rest of the fertilizer complex: urea posted a second straight weekly gain even as phosphate and sulfur cooled slightly from recent highs. The bigger story may be in the Middle East, where Strait of Hormuz vessel traffic and diplomatic activity both ticked up for the first time in weeks — though neither shipping executives nor the White House are yet calling it a resolution.
Fertilizer Prices Data Table: Week Ending August 31, 2026
| Commodity | Unit | Price | Weekly % | Monthly % | YoY % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Urea | USD/T | 428.00 | +4.65% | -2.39% | +3.63% |
| Di-ammonium (DAP) | USD/T | 790.00 | -0.32% | -1.56% | +0.64% |
| Sulfur | CNY/T | 8,769.00 | -5.05% | -3.49% | +232.45% |
| Phosphorus | CNY/T | 1,020.00 | -0.39% | -0.78% | -0.49% |
| Magnesium | CNY/T | 16,800 | -0.59% | -1.18% | -6.93% |
| Manganese | CNY/mtu | 28.75 | 0.00% | -1.71% | -3.04% |
| Soda Ash | CNY/T | 1,030.00 | 0.00% | -6.36% | -14.88% |
Source: Trading Economics. Data as of August 28, 2026.
Nitrogen & Urea Fertilizer: A Second Straight Weekly Gain
Urea extended its rebound for a second consecutive week, rising 4.65% to $428.00/T — its highest print in over a month — even though the nutrient remains down 2.39% on the month. The more striking move is on the annual comparison: urea has swung from a 6.51% year-over-year decline just one week ago to a 3.63% year-over-year gain now, a reminder of how thin and jumpy pricing has become while Gulf export capacity stays constrained. The GCC states — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman — supply roughly a quarter of global urea exports, and continued uncertainty over Strait of Hormuz shipping capacity is keeping a risk premium embedded in nitrogen prices even as vessel traffic shows early signs of recovery (see below).
Phosphate Fertilizer & Sulfur: China’s Curbs Hold, Sulfur Cools From Recent Highs
DAP was essentially unchanged this week, slipping 0.32% to $790.00/T, and remains up a modest 0.64% year-over-year. Prices are continuing to hold near the multi-month highs reached earlier in August, as China’s export restrictions on DAP, MAP, and select NPK blends — still covering an estimated 50–80% of the country’s fertilizer export volumes, according to Fertilizer Daily — show no sign of easing. Ammonium sulfate has faced comparatively fewer constraints. The curbs, first imposed in mid-March following the Strait of Hormuz crisis, are nominally in place “through August”; as of this week’s data, Beijing had not issued a formal extension, leaving whether the restrictions roll into September as a key swing factor for phosphate pricing in the coming days. Combined with Russia’s parallel export limits, the overlapping restrictions continue to push import-dependent buyers in India, Brazil, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa toward costlier alternative suppliers such as Morocco’s OCP.
The Trading Economics sulfur benchmark (CNY 8,769.00/T) eased 5.05% on the week and 3.49% on the month — its softest reading in some time — but remains up an extraordinary 232.45% year-over-year. Russia’s export ban on liquid, granulated, and lump sulfur remains confirmed in force through December 31, 2026, continuing to keep a key input to phosphoric acid and DAP production off the export market. Elemental Phosphorus (CNY 1,020.00/T) slipped a modest 0.39% on the week, extending its slow drift lower.
Middle East Fertilizer Shipping: Traffic and Diplomacy Both Show Tentative Signs of Life
Conditions in the Strait of Hormuz turned modestly, if unevenly, more positive this week after a month of near-total closure. According to USNI News, citing Lloyd’s List data, total transits rose more than 30% in the week of August 17–23 to 114 vessels, up from 81 the week before, with westbound transits climbing from 29 to at least 42 as tankers and gas carriers led the increase. Shipping has adapted through a relay system of offshore transfers and specialized vessel pools willing to run the strait — concentrating risk in a smaller pool of ships rather than a genuine normalization of traffic. The recovery remains fragile: one tracker recorded just three transits on August 23 alone, according to Straits Daily Brief, against a pre-crisis baseline of roughly 85 vessels a day, and Al Jazeera reports traffic remains down some 95% from the roughly 100 ships a day that transited before the February 28 US-Israeli strikes on Iran. The standing vessel backlog did ease to 383 ships holding position as of August 28, down from 449 on August 16 — a modest thaw in commercial confidence even as Lloyd’s List editor-in-chief Richard Meade described the industry as “still operating under crisis conditions rather than anything approaching a return to normality.”
New attacks kept risk elevated even as traffic ticked up: the tanker MT Al Salam II was struck on August 28 and the MT Metro Venetian was hit off Oman on August 27, taking the confirmed seafarer death toll from the conflict past 19. U.S. Central Command maintains that shipping lanes have been cleared of mines and are open, but major shipping companies remain skeptical of that assessment.
Diplomacy showed more visible movement than the shipping lanes themselves. Qatar’s foreign minister visited Tehran on August 27 to help “create suitable conditions for dialogue,” and Iran and Oman reportedly reached an understanding on a temporary maritime corridor — two-way shipping lanes roughly two nautical miles apart through Iranian territorial waters — though Tehran says implementation still depends on Washington lifting its naval blockade and ending hostilities on other fronts, including Lebanon. President Trump was unmoved, telling reporters on August 27 that “Iran’s not getting anything through. Nothing is getting through.” Planned talks in Istanbul were postponed. For a strait that still handles roughly a third of global fertilizer shipments when open, the widening gap between diplomatic momentum and commercial shipping confidence remains the key variable for nitrogen and phosphate pricing heading into September.
Minor Nutrients & Industrial Inputs: Another Quiet Week
The minor-nutrient complex stayed muted for another week. Magnesium (CNY 16,800/T) slipped 0.59%, extending its 6.93% year-over-year decline, while Manganese (CNY 28.75/mtu) and Soda Ash (CNY 1,030.00/T) both held flat week-over-week. Soda Ash remains the group’s clear laggard, down 14.88% year-over-year on persistent Chinese production overcapacity, while Manganese is down 3.04% over the same period. As in recent weeks, this group continues to look like the calmer corner of the fertilizer complex relative to the sharp moves in nitrogen and the ongoing volatility in Middle East shipping.
All commodity data in this update is sourced from Trading Economics. For context on how these price movements are flowing through to crop economics, see the iGrow News agricultural commodities weekly update; for the impact on agribusiness valuations, see the agriculture stocks performance tracker.
Sources: igrownews.com
