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UAN inventories a concern

A fertilizer market analyst says farmers planning to use UAN may see some challenges.

Josh Linville, at StoneX, tells Brownfield…

“We are already hearing a lot of stories out there in the marketplace about tight supplies.”  He says, “Folks sitting there saying, ‘I’m struggling to get products. I’m struggling to get tons back into my tank,’ and we’re early. That is a concerning situation for me and that’s something to be on top of our watch list.”

He says the shortfalls are due to high demand in 2023 coupled with production challenges.

“We had a lot of plant turnarounds, repairs that we expected.”  He says, “However, it took longer to make the repairs and of course, that cold snap that we got this winter ended up hurting production quite a bit as well.”

Linville says challenges in Europe have also been a factor.

“Europe continues to struggle with their nitrogen demand, of course.”  He says, “They represent 30% of global production of UAN. And so, we are sending some from North America. We’re sending a lot of supply still to them every single month.”

He encourages farmers to check with their UAN suppliers early this growing season.