TV reported at the end of this past week that "the produce sector is keeping a close eye on the fertilizer market amid tensions in the Middle East. Global nitrogen values started to rise following events earlier this week, which comes following months of tight supply."
"The story this week has been the Iranian attack on Israel," Josh Linville, the vice president of fertilizer for Stone X Group, told RFD-TV. "Of course, we all know how important the Middle East region is to fertilizer production in general but especially to the Nitrogen sector. However, when you look at this attack, it didn't have any impact to any shipping lanes, it didn't have any impact on fertilizer production, yet prices rose. The attack was the trigger that caused the market to finally say, 'Yes, this tight supply situation we've been fighting with, we're now going to finally start to show it in price form.'"
"If we start to see that become a wider conflict, if now all of a sudden we start to see shipping lanes within the Persian Gulf, or we start to see production within the Middle East start to be impacted, it is really hard to say where prices go to," Linville told RFD-TV. "The only thing you can say is they will be higher, just at what level do they actually get to. It's a dangerous situation and one we're kind of watching every single day."
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