Brazil, Argentina and Australia Boost Urea Imports

IndexBox has just published a new report: 'World - Urea - Market Analysis, Forecast, Size, Trends And Insights'. Here is a summary of the report's key findings.

Brazil, Argentina, Australia and Spain increased urea supplies from abroad sharply in 2020. Despite this, global imports of this product slightly dropped last year. India, Brazil, the U.S. remain the largest markets for imported urea worldwide. In 2020, the average import price reduced by -9.8% against the previous year.

Urea Imports by Country

In 2020, the amount of urea imported worldwide fell modestly to 48M tonnes, shrinking by -2.9% against the year before. In value terms, urea imports shrank to $12.7B (IndexBox estimates) in 2020. 

In value terms, the largest urea importing markets worldwide were India ($2.9B), Brazil ($1.9B) and the U.S. ($1.2B), together comprising 47% of global imports in 2020. India (11M tonnes), distantly followed by Brazil (7.1M tonnes), the U.S. (4.5M tonnes), Turkey (2.5M tonnes), Australia (2.4M tonnes) and Thailand (2.4M tonnes) represented the main importers of urea, together comprising 63% of total imports. The following importers - Mexico (1.4M tonnes), France (1.4M tonnes), Argentina (1.1M tonnes), Spain (0.9M tonnes), Italy (0.9M tonnes), the UK (0.9M tonnes) and South Korea (0.8M tonnes) - together made up 16% of total imports.

In 2020, the most notable growth of purchase volume, amongst the main importing countries, was attained by Brazil (+27.6% y-o-y). In terms of growth rate, it was followed by Argentina (+25.6% y-o-y), Australia (+21.0% y-o-y) and Spain (+20.9% y-o-y). 

The average urea import price stood at $265 per tonne in 2020, reducing by -9.8% against the previous year. Average prices varied noticeably amongst the major importing countries. In 2020, major importing countries recorded the following prices: in Spain ($290 per tonne) and Italy ($281 per tonne), while Turkey ($234 per tonne) and the UK ($237 per tonne) were amongst the lowest. Last year, the most notable rate of growth in terms of prices was attained by Mexico, while the other global leaders experienced a decline in the imports. 

Source: IndexBox Platform