Nitrogen fertilisers
The nitrogen is the cheap part.
Urea, ammonium nitrate, CAN, ammonium sulphate, UAN and ammonia. Every product on this page is a commodity with a published nutrient content — and three separate regulatory regimes that decide whether your cargo can be sold, carried, or imported at all.
The desk
Nutrient content is a number anyone can quote. The three regimes are where deals fail.
Urea is 46 % nitrogen. Ammonium nitrate is 34.5 %. CAN is 27 %. Nobody in this market gets those wrong, and no cargo is ever lost over them. What loses cargoes is that nitrogen fertilisers sit at the intersection of three separate bodies of law, and each of the three can stop a shipment on its own.
The first is security: ammonium nitrate above a threshold is a restricted explosives precursor, and who may buy it is a matter of law rather than of commercial preference. The second is product safety: high-nitrogen AN fertiliser has to be shown, by test, not to propagate a detonation, and AN-based cargoes have their own IMSBC schedules. The third, since 1 January 2026, is carbon: nitrogen fertilisers are inside the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, and most potash and straight phosphate products are not.
So the useful question on a nitrogen enquiry is not what the analysis says. It is who the end user is, which jurisdiction they sit in, and whether they hold the status the law requires. We ask that first, and we will decline an enquiry on it before we ever get to price.
Products
Six nitrogen sources, and they are not interchangeable.
Agronomically they differ in how fast the nitrogen becomes available and how much is lost to the air; commercially they differ in almost everything else.
| Product | Nutrient | What decides whether it suits |
|---|---|---|
| Urea — prilled and granular | 46 % N | The highest nitrogen concentration in solid form, so the cheapest nitrogen to ship. Volatilises as ammonia if left on a warm surface, which is an agronomic loss rather than a quality defect. Granular is harder and better suited to blending and spreading; prilled is softer and cheaper. See quality. |
| Ammonium nitrate (AN) | 34.5 % N | Half nitrate, immediately available, half ammonium. Efficient in cool wet conditions where urea volatilises. Also the product that carries the full weight of the precursor and detonation regimes. |
| Calcium ammonium nitrate (CAN) | 27 % N, plus calcium | AN diluted with limestone or dolomite. Below the high-nitrogen threshold, so it sits in a lighter regulatory position than straight AN — which is much of the reason it dominates in some markets and is unknown in others. |
| Ammonium sulphate (AS) | 21 % N, 24 % S | Two nutrients at once, and the sulphur is the point as much as the nitrogen. Acidifying, so it suits alkaline soils. Low analysis means high freight per unit of nitrogen, which confines it to shorter hauls or to buyers who want the sulphur. |
| UAN solution | 28–32 % N | Urea and AN in water. Liquid, so it needs tankage and a mild-steel-compatible circuit at the receiving end, and it salts out below a temperature that depends on the grade — the 32 grade crystallises earliest, so grade and season have to match. |
| Ammonia — anhydrous | 82 % N | The feedstock everything above is made from, and a direct fertiliser in a few markets. Carried refrigerated at around −33 °C or under pressure, toxic, and requiring specialist terminals at both ends. A different logistics business from bagged solids. |
Security
Regulation (EU) 2019/1148 — who may lawfully receive it.
The Explosives Precursors Regulation is not a paperwork exercise and it does not bend to commercial urgency. It decides who your cargo may be sold to.
The threshold
16 % nitrogen by weight
Ammonium nitrate containing 16 % or more nitrogen by weight in relation to ammonium nitrate is a restricted explosives precursor. Below that figure it is not. That single number is why calcium ammonium nitrate and low-analysis AN blends occupy a different commercial world from straight AN, and it is the first thing we establish on any AN enquiry.
- Who may hold it
- Economic operators — the distribution chain — and professional users: a person or entity with a demonstrable need for the substance for purposes connected with a trade, business or profession, including agriculture, and who does not make it available to the general public. Farmers are professional users. The general public may not acquire it.
- What that means for a seller
- You are required to know, and to be able to show, that your customer is entitled to receive the product. "They said they were a farmer" is not the standard. This obligation runs down the chain, so a distributor's downstream conduct is your concern too.
- Suspicious transactions
- Reportable to the national contact point — within 24 hours. The listed indicators are worth knowing because they are ordinary commercial behaviours in an unusual combination: an unclear explanation of intended use, a quantity or a mix of products that does not fit the stated purpose, unusual payment methods, and reluctance to provide identification.
- Losses and thefts
- Significant disappearances and thefts of regulated precursors are reportable on the same 24-hour basis. Which makes stock control at every point of the chain a legal control, not a warehouse convenience.
Other jurisdictions run their own versions of this — licensing, registration, detonation-resistance certification, or outright prohibition of AN as a farm fertiliser. Several countries have banned it entirely. So the destination decides the product, and we establish the destination's regime before offering rather than after fixing.
Product safety
The detonation resistance test, and the schedules at sea.
Separately from who may buy it, high-nitrogen ammonium nitrate fertiliser has to be shown not to sustain a detonation. Under the EU Fertilising Products Regulation this is a type test on the product, with the certificate travelling with the consignment.
- What is tested
- A confined sample is subjected to an initiating charge and the result must show that detonation does not propagate through the mass. It is a physical demonstration, and the certificate is dated — an old certificate for a different production run is not evidence about this cargo.
- Self-sustaining decomposition
- A different failure mode, and the one that matters more for NPK grades containing nitrate: a decomposition front that travels through the pile once started, without needing further heat. It has its own test, and it is why an NPK containing nitrate is a different carriage proposition from one that does not.
- At sea
- Ammonium nitrate based fertilisers carry three distinct IMSBC positions. UN 2067 and UN 2071 are Group B — chemical hazard cargoes with dangerous goods documentation and controls on contamination, ignition sources and heat. Material that passes the non-hazardous classification travels as Group C. Which one applies is a property of the specific formulation, established before fixing.
- Contamination is the mechanism
- AN fertiliser becomes dangerous mostly through what gets mixed into it — organic matter, oils, chlorides, metals. That is why hold cleanliness, separation from other cargoes and the previous cargo history are contract terms on this product and not general good practice.
Border carbon
Nitrogen is inside CBAM. Potash and straight phosphate are not.
Since 1 January 2026 this is a cost line on nitrogen imports into the EU and not on most of the rest of the fertiliser book — an asymmetry that changes the relative economics of blending in Europe versus importing a finished compound.
| Covered | Not covered |
|---|---|
|
Ammonia, anhydrous and in solution — CN 2814 Nitric and sulphonitric acids — CN 2808 Urea above 45 % N — CN 3102 10 Ammonium sulphate — CN 3102 21 Ammonium nitrate and CAN — CN 3102 30, 3102 40, 3102 60 Sodium nitrate — CN 3102 50 UAN and other nitrogen mixtures — CN 3102 80 Potassium nitrate — CN 2834 21 Mixed fertilisers containing nitrogen — CN 3105, except 3105 60 00 |
Phosphorus-and-potassium fertilisers without nitrogen — CN 3105 60 00, explicitly carved out Straight potassium fertilisers — potash Phosphate rock and apatite concentrate Organic fertilisers |
- What changed on 1 January 2026
- The transitional reporting phase became a financial obligation. Authorised CBAM declarant status must be held before importing, embedded emissions are declared annually, and certificates surrendered against them.
- The de minimis
- Under 50 tonnes of covered goods per importer per calendar year, aggregated across every covered commodity — so a buyer bringing in urea and steel counts them together.
- The timetable
- Certificates purchasable from February 2027; the first annual declaration, for 2026 imports, due 30 September 2027; from 2027, certificates covering at least 50 % of embedded emissions held quarterly.
- The N₂O point
- Production-stage nitrous oxide from nitric acid manufacture counts, and it applies to AN, CAN and UAN. Nitrous oxide released from soil after a farmer applies the fertiliser is outside CBAM scope. Producers with modern N₂O abatement on their nitric acid plants therefore carry a genuinely lower embedded figure, and that is now a commercial differentiator rather than a sustainability claim.
- What we do and do not do
- We supply the producer's verified embedded emissions data and the classification per consignment. We are not your declarant, and we will not put a figure in a contract that the producer has not substantiated.
Urea quality
Biuret, and the four lines that decide whether it survives handling.
Urea is the largest volume on this page, so its quality parameters deserve their own section. Only one of them is about nitrogen.
| Parameter | Typical trade basis | What it governs |
|---|---|---|
| Nitrogen | 46 % minimum | The nutrient. Effectively never in dispute. |
| Biuret | 1.0 % maximum for general agriculture; 0.3 % maximum where the urea is for foliar application or for automotive urea | A condensation product formed when urea is overheated in the plant. Phytotoxic on leaves at levels that are harmless in the soil, and a poison for the SCR application. This is the parameter that separates one grade of urea from another, and it is set in the reactor, not fixable afterwards. |
| Moisture | 0.5 % maximum, commonly tighter | Caking. Urea is strongly hygroscopic and moisture above spec turns a free-flowing cargo into a solid mass in a warm hold. |
| Particle size | Stated range with a fines ceiling | Spreading distance in the field, and segregation in a blend — see why size matching matters. Granular runs coarser than prilled. |
| Crushing strength | Quoted for granular product | Whether the granule survives conveying, bagging and spreading without becoming dust. The practical difference between granular and prilled, and worth specifying rather than assuming. |
| Anticaking treatment | Named, with the coating agent identified | Necessary for bulk shipment in most conditions. It also has to be compatible with the end use — a coated urea is not automatically suitable for dissolution, and that catches people. |
Scope
Where our obligation ends.
- What we supply
- Urea, CAN, ammonium sulphate and UAN in cargo lots, containers and bags, FOB or CFR, with independent inspection. Ammonium nitrate only into destinations that permit it and to buyers whose status under the applicable precursor regime is evidenced.
- Ammonia
- Handled only where refrigerated or pressurised terminals exist at both ends and the vessel is approved for the berth. This is a specialist chain and we do not improvise one.
- What we do not do
- We do not manufacture, we do not operate terminals or blending plants, and we hold no equity in production. We do not sell to the general public and we do not supply any AN product into retail distribution.
- Precursor compliance
- We verify entitlement before shipping and we report suspicious transactions and losses as the regime requires. This is not a term we soften for volume, and an enquiry that fails it ends rather than being redirected.
- CBAM
- We supply producer data and classification. The declarant obligation sits with the importer and we will not represent otherwise in a contract.
How to specify
Seven lines, and the first two are about the destination.
On nitrogen, where it is going decides what can be sent more often than what it is decides where it can go.
Destination and end user
Country, and who actually applies or processes the product. For AN, the buyer's status under the destination's precursor regime.
Product and grade
Urea prilled or granular, AN, CAN, AS, UAN grade or ammonia. With the nutrient minimum and the analysis basis.
Biuret ceiling
On urea. State it explicitly — general agricultural, foliar, or technical. It is the difference between three different products.
Physical properties
Size range and fines ceiling, crushing strength, moisture, and the anticaking treatment with the agent named.
Packing and delivery
Bulk, big bags or small bags with the bag specification; FOB, CFR, CIF or delivered; and the vessel size your berth takes.
Certification
For AN into the EU, the detonation resistance certificate. For anything CE-marked, the conformity route. For CBAM, your declarant status and the data you need.
Pricing mechanism
Which assessment, which publication, the pricing period, or a fixed price for a stated quantity and window.
Inspection
The certificate that matters most is about the hold.
Independent inspection by an agency appointed for the cargo — SGS, Bureau Veritas or Intertek — instructed jointly, with sampling under supervision. On nitrogen fertilisers the analysis is routine and the failures are physical: caking, contamination and degraded granules.
- Hold inspection and previous cargo
- Holds inspected, cleaned and certified before loading, with the previous cargo declared. On AN-based products this is a safety control — contamination with organics, oils or chlorides is the mechanism by which a stable fertiliser becomes something else — and it belongs in the fixture.
- Sampling
- Mechanical or stopped-belt increment sampling to the applicable procedure, sealed retained samples held for the claim period, with moisture on a separate sub-sample taken at the same time.
- Core analysis
- Total nitrogen; biuret on urea; moisture; particle size distribution with the fines fraction; crushing strength on granular product; and the anticaking agent identified rather than assumed.
- Condition
- Photographed at load and at discharge, with specific attention to caking, lumps and moisture pickup. On a hygroscopic cargo, condition at outturn is the claim, and photographs at loading are the defence.
- Quantity
- Draught survey at load and discharge with the governing survey named, or weighbridge and bag count on packed cargo, with the tare basis stated.
- Documentation per cargo
- Certificate of analysis, moisture and size certificates, hold cleanliness certificate with previous cargo declaration, detonation resistance certificate where applicable, safety data sheet in the destination language, certificate of origin, the IMSBC cargo declaration with the correct schedule and, for UN 2067 or UN 2071 material, the dangerous goods declaration, bill of lading and the inspection report with photographs.
Straight answer
What we will tell you before you ask.
- That 16% nitrogen is a legal line, not a grade
- Above it, ammonium nitrate is a restricted explosives precursor and only economic operators and professional users may hold it. We verify that before shipping, and an enquiry that cannot evidence it ends with us.
- That biuret is three products, not one parameter
- 1.0 % general agricultural, 0.3 % foliar and technical. It is fixed in the reactor and cannot be corrected downstream, so it belongs in the enquiry and not in the claim.
- That CBAM caught nitrogen and missed potash
- Ammonia, urea, AN, CAN, UAN and nitrogen-containing mixtures are inside; CN 3105 60 00 is explicitly carved out and straight potash is not covered. That asymmetry now sits in the landed cost of every European blend.
- That the previous cargo is a safety term on AN
- Contamination is how a stable fertiliser stops being one. Hold cleanliness and previous cargo history go in the fixture, not in a phone call.
- That some destinations simply do not allow it
- Several countries have banned ammonium nitrate as a farm fertiliser outright. We check the destination's regime before offering, because discovering it at the discharge port is somebody's total loss.
Enquiries
Every enquiry is answered by the desk that handles it.
Send the product, quantity, delivery basis, destination and timing. We revert with availability, an indication and the documentation that accompanies it. Specifications are released once we know who we are speaking with.