Ammonium Sulfate, 23 October 2026: China FOB $215-220 on Offers, Not on Deals

This note covers the ammonium sulfate market as it stood on 21 October 2026; it is dated for a reason, since the numbers below were true that day and will not be true for long. Fob China for standard caprolactam-grade moved to $215-220/t from $210-220/t a week earlier, compacted held at $220-230/t, and the Shandong domestic benchmark, after sliding for six straight weeks, stopped falling at ¥1,230/t, about $201/t fob equivalent. Traders describe the week as one in which the export price went up and the domestic price stayed put.

Almost nothing was confirmed at the higher level. Offers were lifted without a matching run of concluded business, and traders say that is the detail worth watching rather than the size of the move. A price can be marked up with very little behind it.

The week in numbers

All figures are indicative market assessment levels as at 21 October 2026, from our own monitoring and published industry assessments. They are not offers.

Offer stack

One northern supplier was offering standard at $215/t fob and others quoted above that, but very little was concluded. Traders say that combination, offers moving up while transactions stay scarce, can mean two opposite things: demand about to arrive with sellers positioning ahead of it, or sellers with nothing left to sell this quarter marking up what little they have. Both readings were circulating this week.

In this case traders lean to the second. Chinese export volumes are limited by allocation rather than by production, and most holders of approved tonnage report being sold out for the near term, so there is no competitive pressure forcing anyone to chase a cargo. When the offer book is thin, a price can drift up on optimism alone.

The clearest evidence of how thin the market is sits in the off-spec discount, with MMA-grade indicated at $175-180/t fob, roughly $35-45 below standard. A wide gap between the headline grade and the next grade down is what a market looks like when buyers cannot get the grade they want and sellers know it. Traders describe that discount as a stock-out signal rather than a quality adjustment.

Domestic price

Six weeks of decline ended at ¥1,230/t ex-works in Shandong, unchanged week on week, with river producers steady too. Through September and early October the domestic price fell while the export price held, widening the gap between them, and that gap is an exporter’s margin, which had been the single best argument for why Chinese fob would eventually have to come down. Traders say that argument has now lost much of its momentum.

With domestic flat and export up $5, the spread is now roughly $14-19/t, neither collapsing nor widening any further on its own. If allocation is released in volume, the export premium compresses and fob follows domestic down; if domestic turns and starts rising on gas costs or production cuts, export fob has a floor under it for the first time since August. The market is balanced between those two outcomes, which traders give as the reason so little is changing hands.

Korean tender

A South Korean importer issued a tender for 6,000t of standard ammonium sulfate, closing on 22 October for arrival at the end of November. Traders describe it as small in volume but large in information, since it is the first properly specified, dated, competitive requirement since fob moved to $215-220, and the award will show whether that level is real. An award near $215-220 would validate every offer in the stack, while an award below $210 would cut the low end within a week.

For a buyer in Southeast Asia or Latin America, a Korean award is a useful reference point for the same reason, being a public, comparable, delivered-into-a-port number rather than a phone quote. Elsewhere the confirmed business is sparse. A 2,000t cargo into Myanmar cleared at $280/t cfr in the previous week, consistent with a Chinese fob in the low $220s once freight and bagging are added, and nothing in the current week has contradicted it.

Sulphur costs

Sulphur into North Africa went to $990-1,010/t for the third quarter, against $650-700/t in the second, and Tampa was assessed at $705/t, up $50. Traders call that a reset rather than a drift. The temptation is to read it straight across into ammonium sulfate and expect offers to jump, which they caution against.

Ammonium sulfate reaches the market by three main routes, and only one of them carries sulphur as a direct, immediate cost. Synthetic material, made from ammonia and sulphuric acid, does. Caprolactam by-product and coking or steel by-product material carry it indirectly at most, with their output driven by the parent plant’s operating rate rather than by the fertiliser price.

So a sulphur spike does not lift the whole market: it widens the spread between routes, makes synthetic material the marginal, price-setting tonne, and puts a floor under the by-product grades that dominate Chinese export supply. For a buyer, that is a reason to know exactly which route a supplier’s tonnage comes from. Our production source guide covers how the three differ in practice.

Grade premiums

Europe is where the premium sits. Granular caprolactam-grade was assessed at €375-403/t fob northwest Europe against €308-325/t for standard, a spread of roughly €70/t for the same chemistry in a different physical form, and Chinese compacted at $220-230/t fob is not competing with that number directly because the European price reflects a shortage of local granulation capacity. Brazil is the other pole, with compacted delivered into Brazilian ports at $260-265/t cfr with the high end firming, against standard at $245-250/t cfr and a $15 gap that has held for weeks.

Buyers paying for granulation are being advised to buy the form they actually need and check the particle size distribution rather than just the analysis. For blending programmes, crystalline at a $5-10/t discount to compacted may be the cheaper input even after handling costs. The two forms are not interchangeable, and traders caution that the price gap between them is not a discount that can always be arbitraged.

Buying considerations

In a sold-out market, buyers are being told to ask for allocation before price: a supplier who can confirm tonnage for a loading window is worth more than one quoting $5 lower with nothing behind the offer. Every cfr number should also be treated as parcel-specific. China to Southeast Asia freight has been moving between roughly $43 and $50/t depending on origin port and parcel size, so a delivered price quoted for someone else’s 8,000t cargo does not transfer to a 1,000t trial order.

Grade has to be matched to destination and named in the enquiry, since Brazil takes compacted, Southeast Asia and Australia-New Zealand blending programmes take crystalline, and Europe is short of standard specifically rather than of ammonium sulfate generally. Naming the grade and the form gets a comparable price instead of a range. Traders say that is the quickest way to make an offer stack readable.

Both the case that fob has peaked and the case that it has bottomed depend on a single variable, the next export allocation round, and nobody outside the allocation process knows the timing. Buyers are being advised to secure the tonne they need for the window they have. The speculation, as one trader put it, can be left to people who are paid for it.

Watch list

The base case from here, as sellers describe it, is fob held up by allocation scarcity into early November, domestic flat to slightly softer, and compacted firm on Brazilian demand. None of that resolves until a new round is announced. The timing of that round remains what the whole structure is resting on.

Sourcing ammonium sulfate from China

The grades discussed here — standard, compacted granular and crystalline — cover the main forms in which ammonium sulfate leaves China, with Qingdao and Tianjin the usual loading ports. Inspection and documentation requirements have changed more than once this year, so buyers planning a shipment window should confirm which grades and documents currently apply before fixing a load plan.

• Ammonium Sulfate — the full grade range and typical specifications
• Granular Ammonium Sulfate — for direct application and bulk blending
• Crystalline Ammonium Sulfate — for compound fertilizer and industrial use
• How to import ammonium sulfate from China — documentation, inspection and shipping

Tell us the grade and destination you are working with and we will share the specification and documentation details relevant to that route.

On pricing in this article. All figures are indicative market assessment levels for the grades and bases referenced, as at 21 October 2026, drawn from our own market monitoring and information from our own trading desks. They are not offers and do not represent a quotation for any specific parcel, origin or shipment window. This article was published on 23 October 2026; ammonium sulfate prices change with grade, production source, packaging, parcel size, destination and freight, and are quoted per inquiry and confirmed in the sales contract.