Episode Number
10329
Episode Show Notes / Description
- Greg Johnson, TGM Total Grain Marketing
- How Delayed Fertilizer Shipments Threaten 2027 Yields
- Drew Lerner, World Weather Inc
The April 15, 2026, commodity markets closed with marginal gains in corn, soybeans, and wheat futures amidst widespread U.S. planting delays. Frequent precipitation across the Midwest has stalled fieldwork, though regions such as southern Illinois have advanced, planting up to half of their soybean crop. Market behavior remains subdued; producers are deferring new crop sales due to stagnant mid-range prices, relying heavily on domestic crush capacity while waiting for necessary improvements in global export and domestic livestock demand.
- How Delayed Fertilizer Shipments Threaten 2027 Yields
- Drew Lerner, World Weather Inc
The April 15, 2026, commodity markets closed with marginal gains in corn, soybeans, and wheat futures amidst widespread U.S. planting delays. Frequent precipitation across the Midwest has stalled fieldwork, though regions such as southern Illinois have advanced, planting up to half of their soybean crop. Market behavior remains subdued; producers are deferring new crop sales due to stagnant mid-range prices, relying heavily on domestic crush capacity while waiting for necessary improvements in global export and domestic livestock demand.
Simultaneously, severe logistical bottlenecks in the Persian Gulf threaten the global fertilizer supply chain following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The region, responsible for 18% of global fertilizer exports, currently holds over 40 laden vessels unable to exit. This blockage has triggered an immediate spike in nitrogen and phosphate prices and forced major global producers, including Morocco, China, and Russia, to limit their own exports to protect domestic markets. The resulting scarcity is expected to constrain global agricultural yields through the 2027 harvest.
Global weather conditions further complicate the agricultural production outlook. In the U.S., the Hard Red Winter Wheat crop in the High Plains faces detrimental impacts from persistent drought and extreme temperature volatility, including impending freezes, while the Corn Belt remains oversaturated by ongoing storms. Conversely, favorable spring conditions are reported across Europe and the Black Sea regions. In Asia, India's winter harvest benefits from dry weather, with the upcoming monsoon expected to start strong despite a developing El Niño, while China's rapeseed crop faces severe quality degradation from excessive moisture.
Transcript
cmr260415
Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. It is the 15th day of April, 2026. It's tax day. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. Today, we will talk about the commodity markets with Greg Johnson from TGM, that's totalgrainmarketing.com online. We will hear from Ishan Bhanu. He is with Kpler and a logistics agricultural commodities specialist. We will talk about the bulk movement of fertilizers out of the Persian Gulf, and then we will turn our attention to the weather forecast. Drew Lerner will help us hopscotch across the planet and the northern growing regions of the world on this Wednesday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media.
In Chicago, at the CME Group, corn futures finished the day seven to eight higher, soybeans up nine to ten, and wheat up one to two for the afternoon.
00:59 Ag Markets with Greg Johnson
Todd Gleason: Greg Johnson from TGM, that's totalgrainmarketing.com, now joins us. Hi Greg, thanks for being with us. Also, thanks ahead of time for joining us for our commodity week discussion. We will hold that tomorrow afternoon.
Greg Johnson: Looking forward to it.
Todd Gleason: We will have a lot to discuss then, but we have a lot to discuss today as well. As farmers have gone to the field—I suspect maybe not quite gone to the field because they are probably out from the rainfall in the area—it remains quiet on the phones at this point. Are they calling in to check on potential new crop sales still?
Greg Johnson: Between the sell-off in corn, we have been down four weeks in a row. Until this week, it looks like we are finally going to break that four-week losing streak. Prices are down at the midpoint or slightly below the midpoint for where we have been since the first of the year. So that is not encouraging any farmers to get real aggressive with sales at this point. Like you said, I think a lot of the focus now is farmers want to get into the field. Get some beans planted. We have seen a few beans planted in this area. The reports are that the southern third of Illinois has really made some progress, anywhere from a third to a half of the beans planted already, and some corn has been planted as well. I don't think we are that far along here. I think we are still in the 10 percent range on beans, maybe getting a little bit more than that now in between showers. We have certainly made a little bit of progress on the soybeans. It sounds like we have a rainy forecast for the next several days, but it still seems plenty early, and as dry as the subsoil moisture was going in, I hope it doesn't keep us out very long. I think farmers right now are focused on trying to get the crop in the ground.
Todd Gleason: I have a secondary question about the dryness in the area. We were under heavy drought through the winter months. While we have had rain, I just feel as if there is a sneaky suspicion underneath, at least our part of the world, that things certainly in the subsoil have not recovered completely at this point, though it looks really nice up top still.
Greg Johnson: You are exactly right as far as the subsoil moisture is concerned. We went 13 months in a row, dating all the way back to November of 2024, where the monthly rainfall totals here in Champaign were below the 10-year and 20-year averages. I think we finished calendar year 2025 with about 27 inches, and we normally get 41. So, we went into this year with a very big deficit, a double-digit inch deficit. While March was a very welcome relief with about six and a half inches of rain for most of us, that really soaked in. I don't think we are in any jeopardy of being flooded out anytime soon. At this point, rain is still a good thing. We will take the rain and replenish the subsoil moisture, even if that delays the planting progress a little bit.
Todd Gleason: Beyond the Iran war, most of the attention now turns to the new crop season for corn and soybean planting conditions across the United States, I suppose?
Greg Johnson: I think so. December corn is trading right in that 4.75 to 4.76 range. We have been as low as 4.45, as high as 4.97 or 4.98. So, the midpoint is 4.70. We are right at the midpoint, maybe just a little bit above. With all the uncertainty, all the stories about fertilizer prices and availability, and we still don't know about the acres, I think there is enough uncertainty that farmers just aren't willing to lock in average prices. If we can get back up to the upper end of the range, I think farmers will be more willing to sell both old crop and new crop corn. But right in the middle here, with the whole growing season ahead of us and with all the uncertainty politically and in the world, it just feels like farmers are content to wait a little bit longer before making any new crop sales.
Todd Gleason: Domestic soybean crush has been really good over the last 12 months. Do we expect that to continue and accelerate?
Greg Johnson: It boils down to the RVO mandate, which has certainly helped. I think that is factored in. As we talked about the last couple of weeks, we are basically at maximum capacity for crush at this point until some new plants come online, and that is not going to happen until the end of the year at the earliest, I don't believe. Basically, we need to see exports pick back up again to supplement the strong domestic crush numbers. President Trump and President Xi are scheduled to meet in China somewhere around May 14th or 15th, which is now only a month away. As we get closer to that date, all eyes will turn to that and see if exports can help out this crush number, because the crush number is very good, but we certainly need the exports to pick back up as well.
Todd Gleason: Anything else before I let you go?
Greg Johnson: The dollar is continuing to be weaker. That is always good for exports. That is the good news. Ethanol demand is very good. I think there is some hope that government demand on ethanol will help us out, and maybe we will see some ethanol exports. The problem is live cattle prices are at all-time highs, so that reflects the fact that the numbers are at all-time lows. Ethanol numbers are good, export numbers are good on corn, but the biggest use of corn is livestock demand, and until we see that start to pick back up, it feels like we are comfortable with a 2.0 or 2.1 billion bushel carryout.
Todd Gleason: On that note, as I was coming back from Orion Samuelson's funeral on Friday of last week, I filled up at the Love's Truck Stop just south of LaSalle-Peru on Interstate 39, and it was 15 percent for the regular 87 and 89, and 10 percent for the premium. That surprised me that ethanol was flowing that way. Good news, I suppose.
Greg Johnson: We will take it. That is right.
Todd Gleason: Thank you much. We will talk with you again next week.
Greg Johnson: You are welcome.
Todd Gleason: That is Greg Johnson. He is with TGM, totalgrainmarketing.com. You can hear him each and every Wednesday right here during the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media, or listen to it as a podcast online anytime you'd like in Apple and Spotify, on YouTube, and any other place that you listen to your favorite podcasts. Just look for it by name. Our theme music is written, performed, and produced courtesy of Logan County, Illinois farmer Tim Gleason.
08:08 How Delayed Fertilizer Shipments Threaten 2027 Yields
Todd Gleason: The recent closure of the Strait of Hormuz is creating significant logistical bottlenecks for global agricultural commodities, specifically within the fertilizer sector. Roughly 18 percent of the world's fertilizer exports originate from the Persian Gulf, and ships remain laden in the Gulf with no clear exit timeline. This disruption is promoting export restrictions to and from some major producers. Today, we will break down the global supply chain impact and detail why this scarcity could affect harvest yields well into 2027. We are joined by Ishan Bhanu. He is the lead commodity agricultural analyst for the tracking firm Kpler. Ishan, thank you for being with us. Can you tell me a bit about Kpler, please?
Ishan Bhanu: Sure. Kpler brings transparency to commodities markets. We do that by tracking all commodities on vessels that flow around the world. That is just the base layer. In addition to that, we do global supply and demand analysis on a lot of commodities across energy, liquids, and dry bulks. That includes metals, minerals, and agriculture. To different degrees, Kpler is used by physical players, merchants, producers, consumers, as well as financial players.
Todd Gleason: Let's talk about some of the bulk commodities that move through the Strait of Hormuz out of the Persian Gulf. In particular, I'm interested in the fertilizers themselves. Give me a broad overview of historically what that has been like, and then we can talk about the impact of the Iran war and the closure of the Strait.
Ishan Bhanu: The region, the Persian Gulf or the Middle East Gulf, accounted for about 18 percent of global fertilizer exports last year and about 17 percent the year before. All of these exports have to go through the Strait of Hormuz. A big chunk of this fertilizer is nitrogen fertilizer, mainly urea. The second most important commodity out of the region is sulfur, which is used to make sulfuric acid, but also for phosphate fertilizers.
Todd Gleason: Once the Strait closed or the war began, how were the flows disrupted?
Ishan Bhanu: Very interestingly, if you just look at fertilizer loadings in the Gulf, they have been going almost as normal. What happened was, at the moment the Strait closed, there were already quite a few vessels in the Gulf headed to load fertilizer, ballasting their way there, or delivering something else within the Gulf and then supposed to load fertilizers. What we have seen over the last month is that all of these vessels have continued to load and now they are all laden. If you look at the number of fertilizer-laden vessels in the Middle East Gulf, it is about 43 vessels, which has never been the case. The highest we had seen something like that was 15 vessels. Vessels that were supposed to load fertilizers have loaded fertilizers, they are waiting in the Gulf, but none of them have exited, and we have not seen any recent attempts to exit the Strait.
Todd Gleason: Because these were loading within the last month and are now waiting, they are somewhere between 15 and a few days behind schedule. Has that disrupted very much fertilizer trade across the planet?
Ishan Bhanu: It has. Of course, 15 to 20 days behind schedule is not much to cause scarcity at destinations, but we will see a lot of that in the coming weeks. We can see companies and countries planning for this scarcity. For example, I talked about how sulfur is used to make phosphates. The largest importer of sulfur from the region is Morocco, which is also one of the largest phosphate exporters in the world. Morocco has expressed issues with their ability to continue to produce phosphate fertilizers. China also imports a lot of sulfur from the region, and China has introduced export restrictions on several different types of fertilizers, which we have detailed in our pieces. So has Russia. Russia has also, not directly because of inability to import from the region, but because of higher prices and to protect their own domestic market, announced that it will restrict exports of certain fertilizer types. We are seeing first-order and second-order effects in the fertilizer market across the world.
Todd Gleason: So we currently have delays. We may have scarcity at some point. There are nations that are planning for that, which should move the scarcity back, I suppose, to some extent. Do you have a timeline that you are watching for when scarcity and/or prices might spike?
Ishan Bhanu: As soon as the Strait was blocked, nitrogen-related fertilizer prices spiked immediately, and they have continued to go up over the last month. Phosphates have followed and will continue to follow because it is not just nitrogen, it is not just urea, it is all fertilizers. This is typically what happens in scarce markets. The people who have the commodity and are able to export also limit their exports. It is very similar to the world thinking the U.S. might also ban crude exports. It is similar to that, but that is happening in the fertilizer market. Immediately the countries close to the Gulf, a prime example here is India, stopped getting its fertilizers that it was getting from the Gulf, and a lot of the cargo would have reached India by now, some of what is still bottled in the Gulf. Their summer crops are under threat because of that.
Todd Gleason: The agricultural economics team here at the University of Illinois has been cautioning, even warning producers, that by the time we get to the fall of this year—September, October, when many in the United States would be in need of nitrogen, and much of the anhydrous ammonia is already produced here, though urea is a different case—that the prices will be high. Despite the production in the United States, it is still a global marketplace, and they expect it will remain high, something like $860 a ton. How do you see this playing out over the next several months?
Ishan Bhanu: I agree with that. Even though there is not immediate scarcity within the U.S., high prices, via a globalized world, will persist as long as the conflict continues.
Todd Gleason: What things have I not asked that maybe I should have about this marketplace?
Ishan Bhanu: On high prices, for example, there were several surveys which showed that most U.S. farmers were covered or at least covered but not priced. It is a similar story across the world. While high prices have an effect on current crops, they will have a much stronger effect on later crops. When we see longer-term charts on when fertilizer prices spiked five years ago, the effect of that was on yields the year after. The effect of this will be felt not just in 2026, but also in 2027. It could affect yields of crops as far as harvest in May 2027.
Todd Gleason: Ishan, thank you. I appreciate it.
Ishan Bhanu: Thank you very much.
Todd Gleason: Ishan Bhanu is with Kpler. It is a logistics consultancy company.
17:26 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner
Todd Gleason: Let's turn our attention now to the global growing regions. Drew Lerner is here. He is with World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. Drew, thanks much for being with us. I would like to take a tour of the Northern Hemisphere and the growing regions, and get an update on what spring and winter conditions have been like and your expectations. Let's start in the United States. We have had some issues with the Hard Red Winter Wheat growing regions of Kansas, Oklahoma, parts of Colorado, and Texas. How are things there today?
Drew Lerner: The weather in the High Plains continues to be quite dry. That has been the biggest issue. Of course, we have been seeing a lot of heat coming and going across that region periodically. If it wasn't just that, we also have had some wild temperature swings over the past few months, and are about ready to do it again. Temperatures in the last couple of days have been in the 80s and lower 90s throughout the Hard Red Winter Wheat country, and will continue to be very warm to hot for another day or two. Then it is going to get cold, and it looks like the temperatures this weekend will likely fall below freezing in Nebraska, western Kansas, and eastern Colorado. Temperatures in the 20s, there might even be some upper teens in parts of eastern Colorado. We think there is a better potential for us to see some rain in some of that region when we get out about a week and a half from now. This is the first data that we have seen this. I don't have a lot of confidence, but I will say that the setup is a little bit better than anything we have seen recently. So there may be some rain that comes around in Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado in about a week and a half. That is a long ways out in time, a lot of potential for change, and of course, it is also a lot later in the growing season by then, so I'm not quite sure how much benefit we are going to be able to give to that crop when it does finally rain.
Todd Gleason: And then in the Corn Belt, a quick look there.
Drew Lerner: Most of the corn and soybean producing areas right now, of course, are being faced with a lot of precipitation. The exception to that is the Ohio River Valley and points southward through the Tennessee Basin and even into parts of the Delta. Those areas have seen some fairly good weather. Some fieldwork should be advancing in those areas. But the rest of the Midwest has not been a very pretty picture. A lot of frequent precipitation events, fieldwork has been real sluggish, and we have got more rain coming. We are stuck in a rut right now. Frequent storms from Texas to the Great Lakes region that will continue for at least another week. And then we might see a little bit of a shift southward in the precipitation, which I think there will be a lot of folks in the Great Lakes region that will be glad about that. Wisconsin and Michigan just getting pelted with way too much moisture. Flooding has become more and more common. Like I said, we have another week of that before they get a break. I think as we look further down the road, we will bring a little bit of a short-term break in the wet bias pattern, but I am afraid it may come back again as we get into the last days of April and into early May.
Todd Gleason: And in Europe, from France to the Black Sea.
Drew Lerner: We have dried down France here recently, as well as portions of northwestern Africa, Morocco, and northwestern Algeria, Spain, Portugal. All of these areas had an abundance of moisture earlier this winter. They firmed up here recently. It is not too dry though. It is really a pretty good scenario. They will need rain in another week to 10 days from now, at least in the dry land areas. For the Black Sea region, they have had mostly good weather. It has been a little chilly, still trying to warm it up and get into the fields. A little bit of fieldwork has begun. There was some colder air that reached into parts of Russia this past weekend and earlier in the work week, and there has been some talk in the market that it was threatening, but I don't believe that was the case. The crop has not had a chance to develop enough to be an issue there. For the most part, the outlook for the spring planting season I think is very good for most of Europe and the western portions of the former Soviet Union.
Todd Gleason: What are you watching in India today?
Drew Lerner: In India, it is all about El Niño. A lot of market chatter about what happens to the monsoon this year. For right now, they are harvesting winter crops. It is seasonally dry and warm. It is a good environment for that. I think that El Niño, with its developing so quickly, there is going to be a larger lag in the atmosphere between the time when they declare El Niño to be present and when it will influence India. So I am thinking that the first part of the monsoon season will probably go fairly well, and then they will probably dry down in the second half. August and September will probably be fairly dry. The first part of their season should go fairly well.
Todd Gleason: And finally, in China.
Drew Lerner: China, the rapeseed areas are getting too wet. They have had a lot of rain recently. Some of the early crop is maturing and supposed to be harvested at this time of the year, and we are running into too much moisture. A lot of fieldwork is kind of sitting on hold. It looks like it is going to be fairly rainy there for a good little while. So there may be some quality issues that surface out of that area for the rapeseed. For wheat further north, the situation looks very good right now. The crop should be starting to develop and doing fairly well with periodic precipitation expected to come and go.
Todd Gleason: Thanks for the tour. We'll talk with you again next week.
Drew Lerner: You bet. Have a good week.
Todd Gleason: You too. That is Drew Lerner. He is with World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City, joining us on this Wednesday edition of the Closing Market Report that came to you from Illinois Public Media. I am Todd Gleason.
Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. It is the 15th day of April, 2026. It's tax day. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. Today, we will talk about the commodity markets with Greg Johnson from TGM, that's totalgrainmarketing.com online. We will hear from Ishan Bhanu. He is with Kpler and a logistics agricultural commodities specialist. We will talk about the bulk movement of fertilizers out of the Persian Gulf, and then we will turn our attention to the weather forecast. Drew Lerner will help us hopscotch across the planet and the northern growing regions of the world on this Wednesday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media.
In Chicago, at the CME Group, corn futures finished the day seven to eight higher, soybeans up nine to ten, and wheat up one to two for the afternoon.
00:59 Ag Markets with Greg Johnson
Todd Gleason: Greg Johnson from TGM, that's totalgrainmarketing.com, now joins us. Hi Greg, thanks for being with us. Also, thanks ahead of time for joining us for our commodity week discussion. We will hold that tomorrow afternoon.
Greg Johnson: Looking forward to it.
Todd Gleason: We will have a lot to discuss then, but we have a lot to discuss today as well. As farmers have gone to the field—I suspect maybe not quite gone to the field because they are probably out from the rainfall in the area—it remains quiet on the phones at this point. Are they calling in to check on potential new crop sales still?
Greg Johnson: Between the sell-off in corn, we have been down four weeks in a row. Until this week, it looks like we are finally going to break that four-week losing streak. Prices are down at the midpoint or slightly below the midpoint for where we have been since the first of the year. So that is not encouraging any farmers to get real aggressive with sales at this point. Like you said, I think a lot of the focus now is farmers want to get into the field. Get some beans planted. We have seen a few beans planted in this area. The reports are that the southern third of Illinois has really made some progress, anywhere from a third to a half of the beans planted already, and some corn has been planted as well. I don't think we are that far along here. I think we are still in the 10 percent range on beans, maybe getting a little bit more than that now in between showers. We have certainly made a little bit of progress on the soybeans. It sounds like we have a rainy forecast for the next several days, but it still seems plenty early, and as dry as the subsoil moisture was going in, I hope it doesn't keep us out very long. I think farmers right now are focused on trying to get the crop in the ground.
Todd Gleason: I have a secondary question about the dryness in the area. We were under heavy drought through the winter months. While we have had rain, I just feel as if there is a sneaky suspicion underneath, at least our part of the world, that things certainly in the subsoil have not recovered completely at this point, though it looks really nice up top still.
Greg Johnson: You are exactly right as far as the subsoil moisture is concerned. We went 13 months in a row, dating all the way back to November of 2024, where the monthly rainfall totals here in Champaign were below the 10-year and 20-year averages. I think we finished calendar year 2025 with about 27 inches, and we normally get 41. So, we went into this year with a very big deficit, a double-digit inch deficit. While March was a very welcome relief with about six and a half inches of rain for most of us, that really soaked in. I don't think we are in any jeopardy of being flooded out anytime soon. At this point, rain is still a good thing. We will take the rain and replenish the subsoil moisture, even if that delays the planting progress a little bit.
Todd Gleason: Beyond the Iran war, most of the attention now turns to the new crop season for corn and soybean planting conditions across the United States, I suppose?
Greg Johnson: I think so. December corn is trading right in that 4.75 to 4.76 range. We have been as low as 4.45, as high as 4.97 or 4.98. So, the midpoint is 4.70. We are right at the midpoint, maybe just a little bit above. With all the uncertainty, all the stories about fertilizer prices and availability, and we still don't know about the acres, I think there is enough uncertainty that farmers just aren't willing to lock in average prices. If we can get back up to the upper end of the range, I think farmers will be more willing to sell both old crop and new crop corn. But right in the middle here, with the whole growing season ahead of us and with all the uncertainty politically and in the world, it just feels like farmers are content to wait a little bit longer before making any new crop sales.
Todd Gleason: Domestic soybean crush has been really good over the last 12 months. Do we expect that to continue and accelerate?
Greg Johnson: It boils down to the RVO mandate, which has certainly helped. I think that is factored in. As we talked about the last couple of weeks, we are basically at maximum capacity for crush at this point until some new plants come online, and that is not going to happen until the end of the year at the earliest, I don't believe. Basically, we need to see exports pick back up again to supplement the strong domestic crush numbers. President Trump and President Xi are scheduled to meet in China somewhere around May 14th or 15th, which is now only a month away. As we get closer to that date, all eyes will turn to that and see if exports can help out this crush number, because the crush number is very good, but we certainly need the exports to pick back up as well.
Todd Gleason: Anything else before I let you go?
Greg Johnson: The dollar is continuing to be weaker. That is always good for exports. That is the good news. Ethanol demand is very good. I think there is some hope that government demand on ethanol will help us out, and maybe we will see some ethanol exports. The problem is live cattle prices are at all-time highs, so that reflects the fact that the numbers are at all-time lows. Ethanol numbers are good, export numbers are good on corn, but the biggest use of corn is livestock demand, and until we see that start to pick back up, it feels like we are comfortable with a 2.0 or 2.1 billion bushel carryout.
Todd Gleason: On that note, as I was coming back from Orion Samuelson's funeral on Friday of last week, I filled up at the Love's Truck Stop just south of LaSalle-Peru on Interstate 39, and it was 15 percent for the regular 87 and 89, and 10 percent for the premium. That surprised me that ethanol was flowing that way. Good news, I suppose.
Greg Johnson: We will take it. That is right.
Todd Gleason: Thank you much. We will talk with you again next week.
Greg Johnson: You are welcome.
Todd Gleason: That is Greg Johnson. He is with TGM, totalgrainmarketing.com. You can hear him each and every Wednesday right here during the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media, or listen to it as a podcast online anytime you'd like in Apple and Spotify, on YouTube, and any other place that you listen to your favorite podcasts. Just look for it by name. Our theme music is written, performed, and produced courtesy of Logan County, Illinois farmer Tim Gleason.
08:08 How Delayed Fertilizer Shipments Threaten 2027 Yields
Todd Gleason: The recent closure of the Strait of Hormuz is creating significant logistical bottlenecks for global agricultural commodities, specifically within the fertilizer sector. Roughly 18 percent of the world's fertilizer exports originate from the Persian Gulf, and ships remain laden in the Gulf with no clear exit timeline. This disruption is promoting export restrictions to and from some major producers. Today, we will break down the global supply chain impact and detail why this scarcity could affect harvest yields well into 2027. We are joined by Ishan Bhanu. He is the lead commodity agricultural analyst for the tracking firm Kpler. Ishan, thank you for being with us. Can you tell me a bit about Kpler, please?
Ishan Bhanu: Sure. Kpler brings transparency to commodities markets. We do that by tracking all commodities on vessels that flow around the world. That is just the base layer. In addition to that, we do global supply and demand analysis on a lot of commodities across energy, liquids, and dry bulks. That includes metals, minerals, and agriculture. To different degrees, Kpler is used by physical players, merchants, producers, consumers, as well as financial players.
Todd Gleason: Let's talk about some of the bulk commodities that move through the Strait of Hormuz out of the Persian Gulf. In particular, I'm interested in the fertilizers themselves. Give me a broad overview of historically what that has been like, and then we can talk about the impact of the Iran war and the closure of the Strait.
Ishan Bhanu: The region, the Persian Gulf or the Middle East Gulf, accounted for about 18 percent of global fertilizer exports last year and about 17 percent the year before. All of these exports have to go through the Strait of Hormuz. A big chunk of this fertilizer is nitrogen fertilizer, mainly urea. The second most important commodity out of the region is sulfur, which is used to make sulfuric acid, but also for phosphate fertilizers.
Todd Gleason: Once the Strait closed or the war began, how were the flows disrupted?
Ishan Bhanu: Very interestingly, if you just look at fertilizer loadings in the Gulf, they have been going almost as normal. What happened was, at the moment the Strait closed, there were already quite a few vessels in the Gulf headed to load fertilizer, ballasting their way there, or delivering something else within the Gulf and then supposed to load fertilizers. What we have seen over the last month is that all of these vessels have continued to load and now they are all laden. If you look at the number of fertilizer-laden vessels in the Middle East Gulf, it is about 43 vessels, which has never been the case. The highest we had seen something like that was 15 vessels. Vessels that were supposed to load fertilizers have loaded fertilizers, they are waiting in the Gulf, but none of them have exited, and we have not seen any recent attempts to exit the Strait.
Todd Gleason: Because these were loading within the last month and are now waiting, they are somewhere between 15 and a few days behind schedule. Has that disrupted very much fertilizer trade across the planet?
Ishan Bhanu: It has. Of course, 15 to 20 days behind schedule is not much to cause scarcity at destinations, but we will see a lot of that in the coming weeks. We can see companies and countries planning for this scarcity. For example, I talked about how sulfur is used to make phosphates. The largest importer of sulfur from the region is Morocco, which is also one of the largest phosphate exporters in the world. Morocco has expressed issues with their ability to continue to produce phosphate fertilizers. China also imports a lot of sulfur from the region, and China has introduced export restrictions on several different types of fertilizers, which we have detailed in our pieces. So has Russia. Russia has also, not directly because of inability to import from the region, but because of higher prices and to protect their own domestic market, announced that it will restrict exports of certain fertilizer types. We are seeing first-order and second-order effects in the fertilizer market across the world.
Todd Gleason: So we currently have delays. We may have scarcity at some point. There are nations that are planning for that, which should move the scarcity back, I suppose, to some extent. Do you have a timeline that you are watching for when scarcity and/or prices might spike?
Ishan Bhanu: As soon as the Strait was blocked, nitrogen-related fertilizer prices spiked immediately, and they have continued to go up over the last month. Phosphates have followed and will continue to follow because it is not just nitrogen, it is not just urea, it is all fertilizers. This is typically what happens in scarce markets. The people who have the commodity and are able to export also limit their exports. It is very similar to the world thinking the U.S. might also ban crude exports. It is similar to that, but that is happening in the fertilizer market. Immediately the countries close to the Gulf, a prime example here is India, stopped getting its fertilizers that it was getting from the Gulf, and a lot of the cargo would have reached India by now, some of what is still bottled in the Gulf. Their summer crops are under threat because of that.
Todd Gleason: The agricultural economics team here at the University of Illinois has been cautioning, even warning producers, that by the time we get to the fall of this year—September, October, when many in the United States would be in need of nitrogen, and much of the anhydrous ammonia is already produced here, though urea is a different case—that the prices will be high. Despite the production in the United States, it is still a global marketplace, and they expect it will remain high, something like $860 a ton. How do you see this playing out over the next several months?
Ishan Bhanu: I agree with that. Even though there is not immediate scarcity within the U.S., high prices, via a globalized world, will persist as long as the conflict continues.
Todd Gleason: What things have I not asked that maybe I should have about this marketplace?
Ishan Bhanu: On high prices, for example, there were several surveys which showed that most U.S. farmers were covered or at least covered but not priced. It is a similar story across the world. While high prices have an effect on current crops, they will have a much stronger effect on later crops. When we see longer-term charts on when fertilizer prices spiked five years ago, the effect of that was on yields the year after. The effect of this will be felt not just in 2026, but also in 2027. It could affect yields of crops as far as harvest in May 2027.
Todd Gleason: Ishan, thank you. I appreciate it.
Ishan Bhanu: Thank you very much.
Todd Gleason: Ishan Bhanu is with Kpler. It is a logistics consultancy company.
17:26 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner
Todd Gleason: Let's turn our attention now to the global growing regions. Drew Lerner is here. He is with World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. Drew, thanks much for being with us. I would like to take a tour of the Northern Hemisphere and the growing regions, and get an update on what spring and winter conditions have been like and your expectations. Let's start in the United States. We have had some issues with the Hard Red Winter Wheat growing regions of Kansas, Oklahoma, parts of Colorado, and Texas. How are things there today?
Drew Lerner: The weather in the High Plains continues to be quite dry. That has been the biggest issue. Of course, we have been seeing a lot of heat coming and going across that region periodically. If it wasn't just that, we also have had some wild temperature swings over the past few months, and are about ready to do it again. Temperatures in the last couple of days have been in the 80s and lower 90s throughout the Hard Red Winter Wheat country, and will continue to be very warm to hot for another day or two. Then it is going to get cold, and it looks like the temperatures this weekend will likely fall below freezing in Nebraska, western Kansas, and eastern Colorado. Temperatures in the 20s, there might even be some upper teens in parts of eastern Colorado. We think there is a better potential for us to see some rain in some of that region when we get out about a week and a half from now. This is the first data that we have seen this. I don't have a lot of confidence, but I will say that the setup is a little bit better than anything we have seen recently. So there may be some rain that comes around in Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado in about a week and a half. That is a long ways out in time, a lot of potential for change, and of course, it is also a lot later in the growing season by then, so I'm not quite sure how much benefit we are going to be able to give to that crop when it does finally rain.
Todd Gleason: And then in the Corn Belt, a quick look there.
Drew Lerner: Most of the corn and soybean producing areas right now, of course, are being faced with a lot of precipitation. The exception to that is the Ohio River Valley and points southward through the Tennessee Basin and even into parts of the Delta. Those areas have seen some fairly good weather. Some fieldwork should be advancing in those areas. But the rest of the Midwest has not been a very pretty picture. A lot of frequent precipitation events, fieldwork has been real sluggish, and we have got more rain coming. We are stuck in a rut right now. Frequent storms from Texas to the Great Lakes region that will continue for at least another week. And then we might see a little bit of a shift southward in the precipitation, which I think there will be a lot of folks in the Great Lakes region that will be glad about that. Wisconsin and Michigan just getting pelted with way too much moisture. Flooding has become more and more common. Like I said, we have another week of that before they get a break. I think as we look further down the road, we will bring a little bit of a short-term break in the wet bias pattern, but I am afraid it may come back again as we get into the last days of April and into early May.
Todd Gleason: And in Europe, from France to the Black Sea.
Drew Lerner: We have dried down France here recently, as well as portions of northwestern Africa, Morocco, and northwestern Algeria, Spain, Portugal. All of these areas had an abundance of moisture earlier this winter. They firmed up here recently. It is not too dry though. It is really a pretty good scenario. They will need rain in another week to 10 days from now, at least in the dry land areas. For the Black Sea region, they have had mostly good weather. It has been a little chilly, still trying to warm it up and get into the fields. A little bit of fieldwork has begun. There was some colder air that reached into parts of Russia this past weekend and earlier in the work week, and there has been some talk in the market that it was threatening, but I don't believe that was the case. The crop has not had a chance to develop enough to be an issue there. For the most part, the outlook for the spring planting season I think is very good for most of Europe and the western portions of the former Soviet Union.
Todd Gleason: What are you watching in India today?
Drew Lerner: In India, it is all about El Niño. A lot of market chatter about what happens to the monsoon this year. For right now, they are harvesting winter crops. It is seasonally dry and warm. It is a good environment for that. I think that El Niño, with its developing so quickly, there is going to be a larger lag in the atmosphere between the time when they declare El Niño to be present and when it will influence India. So I am thinking that the first part of the monsoon season will probably go fairly well, and then they will probably dry down in the second half. August and September will probably be fairly dry. The first part of their season should go fairly well.
Todd Gleason: And finally, in China.
Drew Lerner: China, the rapeseed areas are getting too wet. They have had a lot of rain recently. Some of the early crop is maturing and supposed to be harvested at this time of the year, and we are running into too much moisture. A lot of fieldwork is kind of sitting on hold. It looks like it is going to be fairly rainy there for a good little while. So there may be some quality issues that surface out of that area for the rapeseed. For wheat further north, the situation looks very good right now. The crop should be starting to develop and doing fairly well with periodic precipitation expected to come and go.
Todd Gleason: Thanks for the tour. We'll talk with you again next week.
Drew Lerner: You bet. Have a good week.
Todd Gleason: You too. That is Drew Lerner. He is with World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City, joining us on this Wednesday edition of the Closing Market Report that came to you from Illinois Public Media. I am Todd Gleason.