Supply Risk
Neutral
Net score +1.0 · ≥ +2 tightening / ≤ −2 easing
-1.0
Competitiveness easing
US urea margin $629/t in top quartile (97th pct) — wide cushion, ample domestic supply
+1.0
Logistics tightening
Mississippi barge rate elevated (77th pct) — freight stress on fertilizer movement
+1.0
Chokepoint tightening
K 94% sourced from at-risk origins — fragile concentration
The US is a low-cost producer of nitrogen — cheap shale gas keeps its urea cash cost well
below the European marginal producer — so unlike an importer the supply-risk story is not an underwater
margin. It is the erosion of that cost cushion, the physical logistics of
moving fertilizer up the Mississippi, and the import concentration on what the US cannot
self-supply — above all potash, ~90% single-sourced from Canada. This signal is a deliberately transparent
sum of those three — weigh the components, not just the headline.
US merchant margin
$629/t
97th pct of history
US urea cash cost
$141
Henry Hub build
EU urea cash cost
$389
TTF build (marginal)
US cost edge
$248/t
EU − US cash cost
US urea cash cost is built from Henry Hub gas; the EU build from TTF gas is the high-cost marginal producer. The gap between the world FOB price (blue) and the US cost (green) is the US merchant margin — the structural cushion. It erodes when gas spikes or the world price softens. Self-computed from a documented gas→ammonia→urea cost model (coefficients in the footer).
With Henry Hub gas at $2.94/MMBtu, the US urea cash cost is
$141/t — against a world price of
$770/t and a European cash cost near
$389/t. That leaves a US merchant margin of
$629/t (97th pct of its own
history). A wide cushion means ample domestic supply and export pull; a compressed one — from a gas spike or
a soft world price — is where US capacity gets curtailed.
Barge rate
169%
of benchmark tariff
Barge rate rank
77th pct
vs full history
River discharge
813k
cfs at Vicksburg
River stage rank
64th pct
low = drought risk
Barge freight (orange, % of benchmark tariff) spikes when the Mississippi runs low (blue discharge falls) — as in the autumn 2022 and 2023 low-water events, when fertilizer and grain movement stalled. Most US grain and a large share of imported fertilizer move NOLA→interior by barge. Source: USDA AMS barge rates + USACE river gauges.
Most US grain and a large share of imported fertilizer move by barge between the Gulf and the interior, so
the river is a physical supply valve. The current barge rate is 169% of tariff
(77th pct of history), with the Mississippi at Vicksburg flowing
813k cfs (64th pct — low ranks flag
drought). The autumn 2022 and 2023 low-water events are the template: rates spiked, draft limits tightened,
and fertilizer headed into spring application got expensive to move.
The US makes its own nitrogen and phosphate but imports nearly all of its potash — overwhelmingly from one
neighbour, Canada. That single-border concentration is the standing US chokepoint: a friendly partner, but
with no fast substitute if rail, the border, or trade policy interrupts the flow. Nitrogen and DAP/NPK carry
a separate Russia / Morocco exposure. Shares are by import value (US Census), trailing 12 months.
| Nutrient | At-risk share | At-risk origins (2025-06–2026-04) |
Lower-risk swing supply | Imports (value, 12 mo) |
|---|
| Nitrogen (urea, 3102) | 42% | Russia 37%, Trinidad and Tobago 5% | Canada, Qatar, Saudi Arabia | $3,379M |
| Phosphatic (SSP, 3103) | 30% | Russia 30% | Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan | $278M |
| Potash (MOP, 3104) | 94% | Canada 86%, Russia 8% | Israel, Germany, Chile | $3,334M |
| DAP / NPK complexes (3105) | 13% | Morocco 9%, Russia 4% | Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Australia | $1,173M |
Editorial overlay — US trade policy. Potash is the binding US chokepoint: the US mines very little and imports ~85-90% of supply, overwhelmingly from Canada (Saskatchewan), so K is a single-border concentration risk even though Canada is a friendly USMCA partner — a rail/border/trade-action disruption has no fast substitute. Nitrogen is the inverse: the US is a major urea/UAN producer on cheap Henry Hub gas, but still tops up imports, and Russia has remained a large supplier of urea/UAN despite sanctions and AD/CVD actions on UAN (2022) — so N concentration is sanctions/tariff exposure, not scarcity. Phosphate: the US produces DAP/MAP (Mosaic) but AD/CVD duties on Moroccan (OCP) and Russian phosphate (2021) reshaped flows; residual DAP/MAP imports concentrate on Morocco. Treat trade-policy state (UAN/phosphate AD-CVD, potash tariff threats) as the editorial overlay analogous to Brazil/India chokepoints.