look at the chart in the article, then click 5Y on the bottom of the chart.
Click the + sign between the calendar and wrench icon
Type in "US Food inflation". It will overlay the "urea" price with the "US food inflation".
Yes, urea seems to be a leading indicator. It is nothing like in 2022, yet.
I can compare Urea $ to Crude Oil $ and get an even closer 5 year correlation. Are we actually indexing against something else here?
Edit: that is, perhaps urea prices are driven mostly by energy costs, which in turn drives inflation rates.
Was listening to a fertilizer analyst the other day. She thought corn:urea was the better comparison. Nitrogen is the cost of marginal yields. And corn:urea shows the farmer being squeezed between their commodity output price and the required input cost. At some point its just not cost effective to grow corn, so you go soy, and reduced supply should pish up future prices. Oh look! More commodity price inflation pressure!
And that was specifically due to the (ongoing) Russian Invasion of Ukraine. After the 2022 spike, most large countries began building alternative supply chains to reduce impacts from these kinds of hits.
For example, the US and Europe largely doesn't use urea unlike Brazil, India, and China.
This is also why Asian countries have been investing heavily in Hydrogen energy despite HN's hate boner to the technology.
Edit: can't reply
> Is it really hydrogen energy if your plan for the hydrogen gas is turning it into ammonia? Would give you another use for it, I suppose
The whole point of building a hydrogen energy market is becuase hydrogen electrolyzers are dual use, and the methodology to leverage and produce "green" ammonia is similar to "green" hydrogen.
A non-LNG method to mass produce ammonia has always been called out in most countries Hydrogen energy roadmaps such as Japan [0], China [1], and India [2].
[0] - https://grjapan.com/sites/default/files/content/articles/fil...
[1] - https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2022/09/china...
[2] - https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/1033081/...
Evolving hydrogen from electrolysis and then immediately turning it into ammonia is a much better idea; ammonia is easier to handle than H2 gas and already has a market.
Most of your sources have plans focused on hydrogen production, but I'd be interested to see specific targets or plans regarding specific uses like fertilizers. There are some in the Hydrogen Roadmap Europe, but it seems focused on transportation [2].
[1] - https://www.economist.com/business/2026/03/01/at-last-reason... [2] - https://www.clean-hydrogen.europa.eu/media/publications/hydr...
It's primarily in Asia and North Africa. For example, India has begun building a 7GW green hydrogen project specifically for urea production [0] and as a technical demonstration. An Egypt-Germany-Norway JV is also expected to be completed by 2027 explicitly for this usecase [1]
[0] - https://fuelcellsworks.com/2026/02/04/fuel-cells/india-s-7gw...
[1] - https://www.thyssenkrupp.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/pres...
Would give you another use for it, I suppose.
Someone observed that this was the entirety of the presently-outgoing (but sure to be re-elected) state regime's story about reducing electricity bills in the state.
[1] https://research.csiro.au/hyresource/south-australian-govern...
I can't see past 5Y without paying, so I don't know if the past three years was an abnormal low, or if that's the regular cost.
I guess the recent move in urea likely isn’t coming from energy costs, something fertilizer-specific, exports, shipping, or supply?
Or it's just noise \_(ツ)_/
One of India's SOEs recently paused Urea production at some plants due to NatGas issues from the ongoing conflict [0].
Additonally, India began reducing purchasing of Russian LNG in late 2025.
India also launched a tender to purchase urea on the global market in February [1].
This led to a double whammy for urea in the short term given how Indian agriculture is heavily Urea dependent (around 70-80% of all fertilizers used in India are Urea).
But the same SOE recently announced it's restarted operations earlier today [2] and India has restarted spot purchases of what appears to be Russian LNG [3][4] that was originally destined for Europe (especially Hungary and Slovakia).
Edit: can't reply
I'm not a god damn LLM and I do not use AI to write my comments. If you can't engage with an argument, then fuck off.
[0] - https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/punjab/gas-shortage-halts-...
[1] - https://www.rfdtv.com/india-urea-tender-tightens-global-fert...
[2] - https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/bathinda/nfl-bathinda-plan...
[3] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-securing-addit...