Market evolution: Anhydrous ammonia (CN 2814) — 2015–2025

Introduction

This report examines the evolution of European Union trade in ammonia, anhydrous or in aqueous solution (Customs code 2814), over the period 2015–2025. Ammonia is a critical industrial chemical, used primarily as a feedstock for nitrogen fertilizers and as an industrial reagent. Its production is highly energy-intensive, relying predominantly on natural gas, which makes its trade flows particularly sensitive to energy market dynamics and geopolitical developments.

Over the 11-year period covered, the EU's ammonia trade has undergone a structural transformation. Import values grew by 25%, reaching €1.38 billion in 2025, even as imported volumes declined by 5.7% to 2.57 million tonnes — a divergence that underscores the role of dramatic price shocks. The trade deficit widened by 25.7% to €1.32 billion. Meanwhile, EU domestic production of ammonia declined by 23.2% in volume (in kg of nitrogen), signalling a long erosion of the bloc's productive capacity. The analysis that follows is organised around three principal findings: a major reshuffling of trade partners, the impact of energy-driven price volatility, and the EU's growing structural dependence on ammonia imports.

Supply diversification reshaped the EU's ammonia trade geography

The period 2015–2025 witnessed a profound realignment of the EU's ammonia trade partners, both on the import and export sides. Traditional suppliers lost ground while new sources — often located further afield — gained prominence. Similarly, export destinations shifted markedly, with flows increasingly directed towards Eastern European neighbours.

Russia and Algeria remained top suppliers, but their shares fluctuated significantly

The Russian Federation and Algeria were consistently the EU's two largest ammonia suppliers throughout the period. Russia's import value oscillated between €145 million and €536 million, ending at €418 million in 2025 (–3.4% vs. 2015). Algeria's trade was more volatile, with import values ranging from €115 million to €1,062 million; by 2025, imports from Algeria stood at €333 million (–13.7% vs. 2015). The two countries' dominance reflected their access to cheap natural gas — a critical cost advantage in ammonia production — and established pipeline and logistics infrastructure linking them to European markets.

However, their combined share of EU ammonia imports was eroded over time by the emergence of new suppliers. The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) for import concentration by value fell from 3,016 in 2015 to 2,089 in 2025 (–30.7%), indicating a meaningful diversification of the EU's supplier base.

Trinidad and Tobago, Egypt, and the United States emerged as major new suppliers

The most striking development was the rise of Trinidad and Tobago as a key ammonia supplier. Imports from Trinidad surged from €44 million in 2015 to €291 million in 2025, an increase of 567%. Trinidad's ammonia industry, built on abundant natural gas reserves, had long exported to the Americas; the redirection of flows towards Europe likely reflects both competitive pricing and European demand for diversified supply sources, especially after 2022.

Similarly, Egypt rose from near-irrelevance (€1.8 million in 2015) to €66 million in 2025 (+3,469%), and the United States grew from €16 million to €119 million (+654%). The US growth is consistent with the shale gas boom, which dramatically lowered domestic natural gas costs and spurred a wave of new ammonia capacity in the Gulf Coast.

At the same time, Ukraine virtually ceased to be an ammonia supplier to the EU: imports dropped from €46 million to just €21,000 (–100%). This collapse reflects the disruption of Ukrainian industrial capacity and ammonia pipeline infrastructure following the Russian invasion in February 2022.

EU exports were redirected towards Ukraine and Switzerland, away from North Africa

On the export side, the EU's trade partners shifted significantly:

Ukraine's dramatic rise as an export destination (from €160,000 to €8.4 million) is noteworthy: the country, having lost its own ammonia production capacity, increasingly relied on EU imports to meet its fertilizer needs. Meanwhile, exports to Morocco and Türkiye — both of which have their own ammonia industries — collapsed. The HHI for exports rose by 71.5% (from 1,102 to 1,890), indicating growing concentration in fewer destination markets.

The 2021–2022 energy crisis triggered the most severe price shocks in the decade

The period 2015–2025 was characterised by two distinct phases: a pre-crisis era of relatively stable and declining ammonia prices (2015–2020), followed by a period of extreme price volatility triggered by the global energy crisis of 2021–2022.

Anhydrous ammonia prices followed a U-shaped trajectory, with a dramatic peak in 2022

The data on product segment breakdown reveals that anhydrous ammonia (CN 281410), which accounts for over 99% of trade by volume, saw its unit import price follow a pronounced U-shaped curve:

Prices fell steadily from 2015 to 2020, reaching their nadir at €204/t (imports) and €258/t (exports) in 2020 — a period of low global gas prices and weak demand during the Covid-19 pandemic. The 2022 spike was extraordinary: import prices reached €1,099/t and export prices €1,266/t, roughly five times their 2020 levels. This followed the surge in European natural gas prices after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which made domestic ammonia production economically unviable for many EU plants.

By 2025, prices had partially corrected but remained roughly 15% above their 2015 levels (€465/t vs. €405/t for imports; €528/t vs. €447/t for exports).

Specific bilateral trade flows experienced extreme, detected price shocks

The supply shock analysis identifies three major shock events:

The Norway export price shock in 2021 (abnormality score: 35.1) is particularly striking: EU exports to Norway surged in value as Norwegian ammonia buyers faced their own supply constraints, creating a premium. The Algeria and Russia shocks in 2022 reflect the broad-based repricing of ammonia linked to the energy crisis. These bilateral flows showed the highest volatility (coefficient of variation) among all trading partners.

The energy crisis reshaped not only prices but also volumes

The price spike was accompanied by a significant contraction in traded volumes. EU ammonia imports peaked at 3.28 million tonnes in 2019, then fell to 2.05 million tonnes in 2023 before a partial recovery to 2.57 million tonnes in 2025. This decline reflected both demand destruction (fertilizer application rates fell as input costs soared) and supply-side curtailment of EU-based ammonia plants, which were no longer competitive against imported product from gas-rich countries.

Export volumes were similarly depressed, falling from a peak of 189,000 tonnes in 2019 to as low as 115,000 tonnes in another year, before recovering to 140,000 tonnes in 2025. The persistent gap between the EU's import and export volumes — roughly 18:1 in 2025 — underscores the bloc's fundamental structural deficit in ammonia.

EU ammonia production declined sharply, deepening import dependency

The most consequential long-term trend in the data is the decline of the EU's own ammonia productive capacity and the resulting increase in import dependency. This structural shift predates the 2022 energy crisis but was accelerated by it.

Domestic production fell by 23% in volume over the decade

According to PRODCOM production data, EU ammonia production (measured in kg of nitrogen) declined from 3.87 billion kg N in 2015 to 2.97 billion kg N in 2025, a contraction of 23.2%. Production hit a low of 2.30 billion kg N in one year — likely 2022 or 2023 — before a partial recovery. In contrast, production value rose by 57.9% (from €1.12 billion to €1.76 billion), reflecting the surge in prices rather than any increase in physical output.

This divergence between value and volume is a clear indicator of a sector under cost pressure. The EU's ammonia industry, heavily reliant on imported natural gas, became progressively less competitive relative to producers in regions with cheaper feedstock (North Africa, Trinidad, the US Gulf Coast, the Middle East).

Net import reliance increased, and the EU's export capacity eroded

The net import reliance ratio — imports minus exports, divided by production plus imports minus exports — rose from 32.4% in 2015 to 36.5% in 2025 (+12.5%), peaking at 49.2% in a particularly disrupted year.

Simultaneously, the EU's export propensity — the ratio of exports to domestic production — collapsed from 7.8% in 2015 to just 4.6% in 2025 (–41%). This metric registered the highest salience score (86.4 out of 100) among the vulnerability indicators analysed, signalling that the declining ability of the EU to export ammonia is the most structurally significant vulnerability in this market.

Belgium, a traditional production hub, saw its trade profile contract

Among EU Member States, Belgium — historically one of the EU's largest ammonia producers and importers, home to major Antwerp-based chemical clusters — saw its imports fall from €403 million to €245 million (–39.2%), suggesting a contraction in its ammonia-consuming industrial base or a shift in sourcing patterns.

In contrast, Bulgaria and Finland emerged as major new ammonia importers, with Bulgaria's imports surging from €750 to €163 million and Finland's from €973 to €182 million. These likely reflect new fertilizer production capacity or ammonia storage/re-distribution facilities rather than a fundamental shift in downstream consumption.

The specialisation analysis confirms that Bulgaria, the Netherlands, and Belgium have the highest revealed symmetric comparative advantage (RSCA) in ammonia trade within the EU, while large economies like Italy, France, and Finland are net importers with little or no ammonia export specialisation.

Conclusion

The EU ammonia market over 2015–2025 has been shaped by three converging forces: a long-term decline in domestic production capacity, an acute energy-driven price crisis in 2021–2022, and a fundamental reshaping of trade partner geography. The net result is a market that has become more dependent on imports (net import reliance rising from 32% to 37%), more exposed to price volatility (with 2022 import prices reaching five times their 2020 levels), and more reliant on a diversified — but geographically more distant — set of suppliers.

The most vulnerable aspect of the EU's ammonia position is the collapse of its export propensity, which fell by 41% over the decade. This signals not merely a cyclical downturn but a structural loss of competitiveness: EU ammonia plants, burdened by high energy costs, have been unable to compete with producers in gas-rich regions. While the post-2022 partial price correction and volume recovery offer some reassurance, the underlying trajectory — declining production, growing import dependence, and limited export capacity — suggests that the EU's ammonia market remains structurally fragile and sensitive to future energy price shocks or supply disruptions.