Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Jeff Holzman, Vice President of Investor Relations at Nutrien, and I will be the moderator for today's event. I'm joined by Jason Newton, our Chief Economist and Head of Market Research. Jason has nearly two decades of experience covering agriculture and crop input markets, and we're very happy to have him here today to provide a comprehensive analysis of the near-term and long-term market fundamentals. The analysis that Jason and his team provide play a key role in shaping our strategic plans, which we'll be sharing in more detail at tomorrow's virtual investor update meeting. After Jason's presentation, we expect to have around 30-35 minutes for a Q&A session. You can now submit your questions online through the event portal. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that today's meeting may include forward-looking statements.
These statements are given as of today's date and involve risks and uncertainties discussed in our filings with securities regulators. A number of factors and assumptions were applied in the formulation of such statements, and actual results could differ materially. For additional information with respect to forward-looking statements, factors, and assumptions, we direct you to Nutrien's public filings. With that, I will now turn it over to Jason.
Thanks, Jeff. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us for the market outlook session. This morning, I will be speaking about the short-term fundamentals driving energy, crop, and fertilizer markets, covering the impacts of the conflict in Ukraine and talking about some of the structural drivers that will support these markets over the medium term. On a short-term basis, the fundamentals for energy, crop, and fertilizer markets are supported by tight supply-demand balances and the impact of the conflict in Ukraine. Longer term, there are several structural supply and demand factors that we believe will continue to provide support to crop, energy, and fertilizer markets over the medium to long term. I'll start with the short-term fundamentals.
Inventories of major grains and oilseeds have been drawn down over the past two to three years, driven by the combination of supply challenges in major global production regions beginning in 2020, as well as strength in demand, including growth in Chinese domestic consumption, driven by the rebound in feed use following African swine fever and the transition to commercial feeding rations, an improvement in biofuel demand driven by the increase in fuel consumption coming out of the COVID-19 related lockdowns, and driven by strength in crude oil and fuel prices. Almost always when global grain stocks-to-use ratios are tight, as they are currently, an initial forecast based on trend yields leads to an improvement in the stocks-to-use ratio.
However, because of the tight carrying in inventory, projected 45% reduction in Ukrainian grain production, lower than expected U.S. corn acreage, and continued strength in demand, the initial USDA forecast of 2022-23 global grain ending stocks calls for a further reduction in ending stocks over the coming year. At current inventory levels, there's obviously a high sensitivity to production issues which will contribute to an added premium in prices in the year to come. While global stocks-to-use ratio provides an indicator of the relative position of the global supplies versus history, the reality is there is no global point-in-time inventory levels. With the importance of the Southern Hemisphere increasing over time, looking at the balance within key production regions is more volatile and indicative of the balance at a given point in time.
The U.S. corn market is typically very efficient at attracting sufficient acreage to rebalance supply and demand under trend yields. Given the slow planting progress and the input price environment, acreage will fall short of what is needed to rebalance the market and limit potential upside in ending stocks in the coming year. We believe that if there are good crops and extra supplies are available, that there is additional upside in the export market that would tighten the balance further. The USDA currently projects that U.S. soybean ending stocks will increase in the coming year, driven by the significant increase in acreage under the assumption of trend yields. However, based on the assumption of higher demand in the current year and higher domestic use and exports in the coming year, there are private forecasts of tighter U.S. ending stocks in 2022-2023 as well.
The punchline is that there appears, without some combination of above-trend yields and lower than expected demand, there will be continued strong prices and high competition for acreage into 2023. Across crops and geographies at current crop prices and input costs, growers are generating historically high margins in 2021, 2022, and projected to generate higher levels in 2022, 2023. Grower incomes are more sensitive to crop price changes than any other variable. If we look back to a year ago on a spot basis, corn grower incomes are up approximately $250 per acre, and total input costs are up less than half of that amount. Growers in the major crop export regions generated historically high margins over the past two years.
Assuming trend yields in 2022 will have another strong year in the year to come, placing them in a very strong financial position entering 2023. With input costs increasing as they have, obviously, growers are putting a higher amount of risk in the soil and on the crop prior to harvest. Which we have seen impact crop mix decisions, and which we expect to be another factor supporting tight supply and demand in the year to come. In this section, I'll get into more of the impacts of the conflict in Ukraine. At this point, it is well known that the conflict in Ukraine has added to the already prevailing tight supply and demand balances in crop and fertilizer markets with varying impacts, market by market. As illustrated in the graph, Russia and Belarus combined for approximately 40% of global potash production and trade.
Russia is the world's largest exporter of nitrogen products, including each of the four products shown on this graph. It is also an important source of supply growth in recent years, one of the few regions of the world adding supply. Over the past few weeks, there's been a steady stream of news articles covering what appears like momentum in negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and the UN to allow for the safe movement of grains from Ukrainian ports to import markets. Given the state of world food security, particularly in the most food insecure regions of the world, we certainly hope that an agreement can be made. However, geopolitical experts continue to rate the probability of a successful outcome as relatively low in the short term.
The reported scenario would be one in which Russian fertilizer exports and potentially Belarusian potash would be freed up for exports in exchange for free passage of grains. The reason it is viewed as unlikely is that Russia's fertilizer is not currently sanctioned directly but is being constrained by financial sanctions that create challenges to conducting trade. The U.S. has offered to send comfort letters to shippers in an attempt to alleviate some of these concerns. In theory, in the reported scenario, Russia isn't getting a lot beyond what is already allowed in terms of shipments, and it is thought it would ask for significantly more sanction relief in order to allow Ukrainian grain shipments.
Recent actions have been in the opposite direction of progress toward a deal, as just last week, the European Union announced another round of sanctions, including a phasing out of Russian crude oil imports and a prohibition of additional Russian banks from using SWIFT. It has been reported that Russia is exporting stolen Ukrainian grains. Even if a deal were to be struck, it would take some time to remove the mines from Ukrainian waters, and there remains a lot of details to be ironed out that would be difficult to come to terms on, further challenging a successful outcome. On the Belarusian side, the access to the port in Klaipėda, which is controlled by the Lithuanian government, is the biggest constraint. In theory, if U.S. sanctions on Belarus and Kaliningrad were removed, the Lithuanian government could remove the restrictions, but that is not a guarantee.
The other factor to keep in mind is that this is a short-term fix for global grain supplies, as Ukrainian grain production for the upcoming year is expected to be down significantly. While Russian prospects look positive, there is the potential that Russian exports are restricted, as they have been in recent years, in order to place more pressure on the West. We spent a lot of time in recent months game planning the various scenarios that could unfold in the conflict, from a prolonged conflict, which appears most likely at this stage, to an escalation and an occupation to some kind of diplomatic resolution, and in the short, medium, and long-term implications. In any scenario, we expect the following outcomes. Growth in agricultural production in the region will slow.
We know that there were already signs that the growth was slowing pre-conflict, but with reduced outside investment in the region, the pace of growth in corn and wheat production is likely to decline going forward. Energy prices will be higher. We have seen this in analyst forecasts and the forward curve. Expectations are that energy prices will take a step change higher over the next 5+ years. Finally, fertilizer production from the region will decline in the short term, and both projects and new developments will slow the growth going forward versus what has been and what we had previously forecast over the medium term. We have not changed our forecast of 2022 production in key regions from when we released Q1 2022 earnings a few weeks ago.
We currently continue to project that potash supply constraints will limit 2022 production and in turn demand to between 60 and 65 million tons in 2022, as reduced supplies from Russia and Belarus are only partially offset by increased production in other regions of the world. On this graph, you can see that the greatest level of uncertainty with respect to Russian potash, which we project will be down between 2 and 6 million tons compared to 2021 levels. Belarusian production is expected to be down 6-8 million tons year-over-year, and we've already seen a significant reduction so far in the year. Canadian production is expected to be approximately 2.5 million tons higher, a large year-over-year increase but only partially offsetting the lost supply in Eastern Europe.
Diving into the details a bit deeper on the shipments from Russia and Belarus, it is our view that the impact of the reduced shipments from the region have yet to be fully felt by the market. Russian exports from January through April were down approximately 35% year-over-year, but the reductions were concentrated in March and April, which were down around 50% year-over-year. Belarusian shipments have been near zero from ports since the supplies at Klaipeda were drawn down, and low volumes of exports are restricted to rail shipments, including to China and some very small volume via containers. The second half of the year has greater uncertainty. Russian exports are projected to be down between 25% and 60% year-over-year, and Belarusian exports down by 60%-80% year-over-year.
At the rate of shipments in recent months, even the low end of projected Belarusian exports may be difficult to achieve. Exports from the region were high to end 2021 and in early 2022. A lot of the supply needed for applications in the first half of this year were already positioned. For this reason, we believe as the summer fill occurs in North America and Brazil needs to complete purchases in advance of the spring planting season, the tightness in the market will become more apparent. We expect limited supply to be rationed across all major potash markets. India came into 2022 with extremely low inventories, and we expect increased imports in 2022 from low 2021 levels, but still below 2020 levels.
In other Asia, the fundamentals are very strong with high crude palm oil prices, but expect shipments to decline to between 8.5 and 10 million tons from 10.8 million tons a year ago because of limited supplies. In North America, coming into the spring of 2022, there were three consecutive historically strong application seasons that drove high shipments in 2021, and we know that the application season in the spring of 2022 was hampered by weather, so a reduction is expected this year. In Latin America, 2022 has begun the same way 2021 ended, with very high imports of potash exceeding 2021's record pace. For this reason, inventories have built up and the spot activity in that market has slowed in recent weeks.
We expect that fresh demand will emerge ahead of the domestic planting season, which begins in September, but that supply constraints will lead to reduced total shipments year over year. While China came into the year with reduced inventory, supply constraints and below-market contract prices for 2022 will keep supply constraints. Other markets, particularly in Europe and Africa, are expected to decline in 2022 because of supply constraints. We've seen a significant impact on Russian ammonium supplies as a result of reduced access to the Black Sea and through Ukraine. As a result of this reduction, some analysts are calling for exports in the range of 1,000,000 tons compared to closer to 4,000,000 tons in 2021. This will create a shift in trade flows as Middle Eastern supplies will need to move into some of the markets like North Africa and increasing volumes into India.
For urea, there is less of an impact on a percentage basis, but given we already have Chinese export restrictions in 2022 to see an extra 1-1.5 million ton reduction in urea exports from Russia year-over-year, when exports were expected to actually increase to near 8 million tons this year, is a significant impact to the market. Before moving on, I just wanna touch on the short-term negative pricing momentum that we have seen of late, particularly in North American nitrogen and phosphate markets, which isn't consistent with the tight supply-and-demand fundamentals I've outlined. In our view, the main drivers of this trend are the relatively poor start to the planting season in North America and the solid positioning of the supply chain in both North America and Brazil.
We know that in-season pricing strength is typically driven by early planting, particularly if there are domestic production outages, and neither of those factors came into play in 2022. We believe that concerns about tight supply availability began in the second half of 2021 and led to some length being built in the channel in both ag and industrial markets globally. With prices under pressure and the Northern Hemisphere season through the peak, that has decreased prices as inventories are being drawn down before fresh purchases are made. We would expect higher than normal volatility to continue in the current pricing environment, and we believe that as the inventories are drawn down entering the summer, the impacts of the constrained Eastern European supplies will be highest in the second half of 2022.
I'll spend the remainder of my presentation discussing several structural drivers that we believe are supportive to the medium to long-term supply and demand fundamentals, and in turn will drive increased average crop and fertilizer prices. You can see in this graph that well before the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the supply demand balance for key grains had been declining since peaking at approximately 19% in 2016-2017. Under the assumption of historical trend yield, acreage, and consumption growth, we expect to see some increase in the global stocks-to-use ratio going forward. This is consistent with history. Typically, supply and demand work relatively in balance at trend growth rates. However, we believe these trends will be difficult to achieve over the long term for a number of reasons.
First, the conflict in Ukraine is likely to have lasting impacts beyond the most acute impacts this year as foreign investments in the region decline and access to labor and logistics in Ukraine continues to be a challenge. You can see the impact of plateauing production in the region on the supply-demand balance. Second, we have seen a dramatic increase in Chinese grain imports over the past three years. As Chinese imports increase, it has the potential to further tighten global supply and demand. Third, trend production increases appear to be a given historically, but those production increases will be difficult to maintain due to finite land and increased environmental pressures.
Global land planted to major crops has increased by approximately 120 million hectares or more in each of the past two decades. Not only will this be a challenge to repeat because of the finite land available, particularly in geographies like China and India, but also because of emissions released by breaking up permanent grasslands and/or forests. Furthermore, we believe that countries and regions are increasingly regulating input use, which could constrain future trend yield growth. Finally, climate change itself could impact trend yield growth and certainly increase the volatility around trend yields. All of these factors contribute to structural tightness in crop markets for the foreseeable future. As discussed, the structural shortfall in Chinese grain demand has been an important contributor to tightening global grain supply-demand balances. At trend levels of yield and consumption growth, we'd expect this shortfall to continue to build over the medium term.
You can see from the graph on the right that Chinese area growth has stabilized, and there is upside in corn acreage if crop mix changes, but in any case, the shortfall in grain supplies is expected to continue. There is significant potential growth in global biofuel consumption as the energy industry looks to use biofuels to meet clean fuels standards, and in some cases, biofuels are the best available alternative to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors like jet fuel. We've seen a number of canola crushing plants announced in Western Canada over the past couple of years, and know there is further interest from non-conventional players to produce canola oil in order to boost renewable diesel production. The graph on the left shows the range of International Energy Agency scenarios for global biofuel consumption, while the graph on the right shows the resulting feedstock demand growth ranges that could result.
You can see that there's potential for significant growth over the medium term. Crop supply constraints are likely to limit the growth of biofuel production over this time period. Balancing food and energy security and the environment are important considerations for policymakers and users. What this points to, in our view, is that crops will continue to have a growing value as an energy source over the medium term and continue to be important long term as hard-to-abate sectors require low-carbon fuel alternatives. It is another driver that could shield global grain and oil seed fundamentals if the supply-demand balance does not improve over the medium term. We are currently in the second consecutive year of strong crop prices, and with the supply and demand fundamentals shaping up positively into 2023, prices are likely to remain above the 10-year average.
It is rare for crop prices to remain significantly higher than average for more than one to two consecutive years. In our view, in the past 50+ years, there have only been two periods where this has occurred. The first was in the mid-1970s as a result of Soviet grain purchases, and the second was in the period from 2006 to 2008, where a combination of strong demand, including from ethanol and supply challenges, led to another shift. What happens when crop prices experience multiple years of above-average prices is that the price increases become structural. This occurred in the 1970s and again in the period from 2006 to 2008. You can see in this graph that the forward curves in corn, soybeans, and wheat are currently trading at levels that imply a structural shift higher from previous averages.
U.S. corn and soybean futures are up in the range of 40% since our last investor update in November of 2020, while wheat futures in 2023 are up close to 90% from that time. There are a relatively wide range of scenarios that could play out in the potash market over the medium term, but regardless of which scenario unfolds, we'd expect the supply-demand balance to be tighter than we would have predicted coming into 2022. The key reason for this is the reduced supplies from Eastern Europe. We believe that in whatever scenario unfolds in Eastern Europe, the scheduled capacity expansions and ramp-ups will be delayed compared to previous expectations, which would lead Russian capacity to be up to 6 million tons lower than previously expected by 2025.
Belarusian base supplies are more limited by port access, which in addition to potential delays to ramping up the Petrikovsky Project, leads to up to 7 million ton reduction in capability versus previous forecasts by 2025. We would expect in any case, the supply from that region will become increasingly available over the medium term as either restrictions on exports are reduced or alternative trade flow channels develop. However, the available supplies are lower than when we would have previously forecast, in large part because of the slowdown in the pace of capacity ramp-ups in the region, which we previously modeled as making up approximately 60% of the global additions over that time period.
These supply constraints are expected to contribute to a significant pent-up demand over the medium term, meaning that if available supplies from the regions are higher than expected, demand could rebound to above-trend levels to rebuild supplies through the pipeline. Moving on to the nitrogen market, likely the most important structural shift that has occurred over the past year has been the increase in energy prices. Back in 2020, there was considerable analysis done on the flattening of the global nitrogen cost curve and the relatively low spread between high and low-cost regions facilitated by the trade of LNG. The issue is that supply has grown at a considerably slower rate than demand. As a result of the conflict in Ukraine, Russian supplies are likely to be increasingly isolated from the rest of the world.
Higher natural gas prices support coal prices as those countries that can switch, particularly in lower-income Asian countries, are doing so, supporting coal demand and tightening that supply-demand balance. Over the medium term, like all fossil fuels, there is the likelihood of under-investment versus what would have been traditionally occurred in these pricing environments, contributing to higher prices as evident in the shift higher in the forward curve in the graphs in the slide. North American prices have also increased because of the support from the global market. From the graph, you can see that the nitrogen cost advantage versus higher cost regions of the world has also increased. We have been bullish on the medium to long-term supply and demand prospects for nitrogen for some time, given the dramatic slowdown in new capacity that was scheduled to come on stream after 2022.
Given both the gas-price-related reduction in European operating rates and the reduced supply from Russia, realization of this tightness in the market was brought forward to the second half of last year, particularly when combined with Chinese urea export restrictions. Given the potential for continued supply constraints for Europe and Russia, we now expect a much tighter supply-demand balance over the next two years, creating supply constraints, and already given supply-demand trend demand growth, we expected constraints beyond 2023 as capacity additions slow. There are a number of factors leading to slower capacity additions. First, you would expect in a pricing environment like has existed over the past 12 months, there would be an increase in the number of projects being announced, but that has not been the case.
One reason may be uncertainty with respect to long-term regulation and market conditions as industry players focus on meeting emissions targets. Secondly, in addition to uncertainty about the form of nitrogen, there is also uncertainty about the ideal color of nitrogen to produce, which has likely held up investment. Although we know there is significant upside in clean ammonia demand over the medium to long term. The other uncertainties relate to the rapid rate of inflation, particularly on equipment as well as gas cost increases in the current global gas price environment. Raef Sully will discuss this in more detail tomorrow, but in addition to the opportunity to fill a gap in the conventional ammonia supply demand balance over the medium term, there is the potential for a transformation of nitrogen demand developing because of demand for clean ammonia.
There is a wide range of uncertainty about any forecast out as far as displayed on this slide. In any scenario, there's a massive amount of growth potential for clean ammonia, with some forecasts calling for up to 160 million tons of incremental ammonia demand by 2040. To put that in perspective, total gross ammonia production in 2021 was just over 190 million tons, and just over 130 million tons was outside of China. Total global merchant ammonia trade is just over 18 million tons. The main sources of demand for clean ammonia are power generation, with significant steps already being taken to pursue this in the Asia Pacific region. Marine fuel, ammonia is viewed as one of the only ways of allowing ocean vessels to decarbonize.
As a hydrogen carrier for use in vehicles, buildings, and industrial uses. In agriculture, we believe there's a potential for a clean nitrogen fertilizer market to develop, which would allow nitrogen-intensive crops to be produced with lower emissions footprint and potentially have value to end users, including those of low carbon biofuels. In addition, existing industrial users may have interest in obtaining low carbon ammonia to reduce their emissions footprint. Throughout this presentation, I've outlined a number of factors that we believe are supportive of prices above mid-cycle levels for an extended period of time, which could be throughout the next three to five years, depending on which scenarios unfold. We also believe that mid-cycle prices will be higher than we have historically assumed. We have historically approximated mid-cycle fertilizer prices as the 10-year average.
While there are obviously a range of possible outcomes, we believe the tight supply-demand fundamentals and higher marginal costs support increased mid-cycle pricing assumption equal to the rolling 10-year average prices, + $50 a tons for the following reasons. First, agricultural fundamentals are supportive of above-average crop prices and grower returns. The short to long, long-term outlook is supportive of higher prices because of the prolonged tightness in the supply-demand balance and several structural supportive factors over the longer term. Second, energy prices have increased dramatically in the short term, as has the long-term outlook driven by slow supply response to the current market conditions and reduced supply from Russia. Looking back historically, energy prices obviously have a direct impact on nitrogen marginal costs and prices, but the correlation to all fertilizer prices is high.
Given the high energy price and inflationary environment, we expect fertilizer prices to also be higher through the cycle. Third, we need to add new potash and nitrogen supplies to meet global demand. As I have outlined, there are some challenges that may require an even higher economic signal, but in order to justify projects, prices need to remain above the long-run marginal cost. The current long-run marginal cost forecast for each nutrient is roughly in line with the higher mid-cycle prices outlined in this slide. Finally, you can see the trend line on the graph on the slide. In order to get back to the long-term trend line, rolling 10-year average prices would have to increase by at least $50 a tons for all products.
To wrap up, we believe that the shift higher in current and forecast energy prices is supportive of the short to longer term outlook for fertilizer and crop prices. The short-term agricultural fundamentals are supportive of the outlook for crop prices for the remainder of 2022 and into 2023, and several structural drivers support the longer term outlook. In potash, we expect the current supply constraints to become most evident to the market in the second half of this year, and the continued supply constraints over the medium term support the outlook over a longer term period. Finally, the nitrogen market has tightened earlier than expected, driven by the reduced supply from Russia, which in addition to further tightening over the medium term, supports higher short and longer marginal costs and supports a higher mid-cycle outlook.
For both nitrogen and potash, we've increased our view of the mid-cycle prices to the 10-year average + $50 per tons. I will now pass it back to Jeff, and I look forward to your questions.
Great. Thanks, Jason. That's a fantastic presentation, and we've got a lot of questions here in the queue, so we'll jump right in. We'll try to cover as many as we can over the next 30 minutes, and a lot of themes here evolving, so I think we'll cover a lot of ground. The first one is on crop economics. Profitability looks very good as highlighted on slide seven, but farmer sentiment seems to have trended negative recently, as highlighted by the Purdue University/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer. What's leading to this divergence, and how does it impact farmer demand for crop inputs like fertilizer, and what is Nutrien hearing from their customers?
Yeah, that's a good question. I think a lot of the negative sentiment we've seen in the Purdue survey is expectations of what can happen in the future. I think as laid out here, the potential shortfall in fertilizer supply and demand could become more evident in the second half of this year. Part of the rationale or reason behind the weakening sentiment in the Purdue survey was expectation of input prices going forward.
I think what we've seen and what we've heard is that there are concerns about the level of cost increases, even though on paper and certainly as we look at the crop budget, current prices remain economic from an application perspective and grower margins are increasing because of the increase in crop prices. Costs are also increasing significantly. When growers are planting a crop, they're applying high cost inputs to the soil and to the crop as it comes out of the ground, which increases their risk. At this stage of the growing season, with a lot of uncertainty around production, that is something that will drag on sentiment.
Great. Thanks, Jason. A couple questions here on Brazil potash, and I'll try to combine two that came in. First part of it is do you have any comment regarding a recent Bloomberg article indicating that fertilizers like potash are piling up at Brazil ports? Then there was a second question that came in that just talk about our view on inland inventories within Brazil.
Yeah. That's a good question. As touched on in the presentation, we do believe that strong imports of fertilizers in late 2021 and in early 2022 did lead to an increase in inventories. What we've heard from our team in Brazil is that a lot of those inventories are sitting at port. The growers have been hesitant to book as much fertilizer forward as they typically would, and so not necessarily seeing that potash move inland. The inland inventories are at average levels or in that range. But the port inventories is really where those inventories are higher.
In the coming weeks we'd expect that port inventories start moving at a faster pace inland, and that's when there will be the need to refill and get the pipeline reloaded in advance of the spring planting season, which begins in September.
Another one on potash here. What is your view on Russia and Belarus potash exports in 2023 and 2024? Do you see a reshifting in global trade flows?
Yeah. We expect exports to increase in 2023 and 2024 levels from the current levels in 2022 as the supplies become more available, and this is especially from Russia. You'd expect that the Russian offering rates and supplies would start to make their way out at a higher rate in 2023, although significantly below what was previously expected. In terms of the trade flow shifts, that is something that will have an impact as it's likely that they'll focus on regions that are more friendly to Russian supply. We know that Brazil is one of those markets and we've seen the supply be concentrated into Brazil.
You'd also expect the contract markets would focus more on securing Russian supplies. Assuming the restrictions to Lithuania remain in place through 2023, we don't expect and the analyst reports that we've seen don't expect a significant increase in Belarusian supply to be made available in 2023 just because of the limited port access.
That's actually a good segue. There's another question here, you know, in terms of Russian, Belarus export capabilities. The question is: Is Russia expanding ports and terminals in St. Petersburg to eventually accommodate some/all Belarusian potash exports?
Yes. There have been the announcement of some increased capacity in St. Petersburg to handle that Belarusian supply. Our understanding and recent intelligence we've heard is that there is really limited ability to add port capacity in St. Petersburg. It certainly isn't a solution to export all of the Belarusian supplies as basically was done before through Klaipėda. It's probably an expansion in the range of 1-2 million tons, a relatively small proportion of the pre-2022 export volumes from Belarus.
A lot of the attention has, I guess, been on that ocean, you know, the ocean trade. I guess here there's a question also on rail capacity. What is the maximum rail capacity of Russian, Belarusian potash and grain shipments to China?
Well, we've seen historically that Russian shipments tended to peak out in around 250,000 tons per month range. And so on an annualized basis, that's somewhere in the range of 2.5-3 million tons per year of Russian supply. We've seen some data of late of relatively high shipments of Belarusian potash as well, but we think that volume to China would fall short of where the Russian volumes are. There can also be some rail shipments that move into other markets like Iran that are more friendly to Russian and Belarusian supplies. In terms of grain shipments, that is probably somewhere in the same range.
I'm not completely sure what the limitations are on volumes. It is important to note that, like Russia, the rail gauge in Ukraine as well is a different gauge than that exists in China or in Europe. The shipments being made by rail into Europe or into China need to be reloaded onto other rail cars in order to cross the border, which limits or constrains the export capacity.
Great. Thanks, Jason. We'll switch gears a bit here and question coming in on the nitrogen side. Why do you think that urea prices at NOLA are so out of line with the rest of the world as well as with UAN and ammonia prices in the U.S.?
Yeah. Certainly they've been discounted in the last number of weeks at NOLA, and really through much of this year. Part of the reason is that imports of urea into the U.S. were unusually strong in the second half of 2022 from a seasonal perspective, which put the supply chain in relatively good position to start the year. Then that was combined with a slow start to the planting season. If you think about the areas that were most impacted and are still impacted in some cases from a delayed planting perspective, especially North Dakota, Minnesota, and South Dakota, those are the three top urea using states in the U.S. Western Canada also had a slow start. That's a big urea using area.
All of those factors combined to put downward pressure on urea prices. It isn't unusual for North American urea prices to disconnect at this time of year. As was implied, there is both the North American domestic market is at a discount relative to other global export benchmarks, and it also has a value as an export. Even at lower Brazilian prices today, U.S. Gulf urea can be exported into Brazil much more competitively than exports from the Middle East at the current time. As we move forward and the summer fill begins in North America, we'd expect that North American prices will again converge with international prices through the summer months.
Great. Thanks, Jason. We'll move to a bit more of a longer term focused question. That is: The fertilizer industry has a long history of announcing significant capacity expansions during strong fertilizer product pricing periods, and those capacity expansion plans more often than not contribute to weaker product pricing. Why do you believe the dynamic may be any different in the current environment?
Yeah, it's a great question. Typically in commodity markets, you see suppliers respond to the strong pricing signal and lead to a supply cycle. As laid out in the presentation, there's a number of structural factors that we believe slow this supply response versus what we have seen historically. The first in nitrogen is the uncertainty around what form and what color of nitrogen to produce. We've had strong urea prices since really the middle of last year. We haven't seen any or very few large urea projects announced. One of the reasons may be that you can't produce low carbon urea because you require carbon dioxide as an input.
That may be one of the factors as companies look at emissions targets that we've seen reduced nitrogen volume. The other factor for nitrogen as mentioned is the strong potential long-term growth in ammonia driven by clean ammonia demand. In potash, the reality is we've never seen a disruption in supply like we're seeing today with supplies being cut off from Eastern Europe. With those supply reductions and delays and new projects being announced or being ramped up in that region, that continues to constrain supply.
The final reason, especially if we look over a three to five -year period, is there are very few producers globally. Nutrien is one that does, but very few producers that have the ability to increase production significantly over that shortened time period. We've seen announcements. Mosaic announced that they were increasing production by 1.5 million tons. Beyond that, there's really a limited ability of the industry to boost production within that three to five -year time period.
There was a question in the queue related to Nutrien's potash expansions. You know, certainly that will be something we'll discuss in more detail tomorrow at our virtual investor update meeting in terms of we've talked earlier this year. You know, in March, we announced our intention to move from 14 million tons up to 15 million tons of approximate production capability in 2022. Tomorrow we'll discuss in more details our longer term plans on the potash production side. Maybe a related question to the last one, and I know you touched on it a bit in your presentation, Jason, but just from the grain and oilseed side, we're in what looks to be more of a structural deficit right now. Similar question.
I mean, how does the world build that capacity to kinda meet the longer term supply challenges on the grain and oilseed side, and how long could that actually take?
Yeah. Historically, growers have been pretty efficient at responding to market signals. We'd expect, especially in major markets like North America and Brazil, that you will see expansion in area, particularly in Brazil. Investments made in improving agronomics and adopting technology that boosts yields likely will be supportive, although you need supportive weather as well to drive those yield improvements. You also have to look at policy. In the US, we wouldn't expect a significant increase in the amount of land coming out of the Conservation Reserve Program, but there is the potential that governments respond with policy incentives to boost production. That has happened historically.
If we look at markets like the U.S., which has the Conservation Reserve Program, and a market like China, which is a very large agricultural producer and can put in incentives to boost production, those are factors that could lead to increased agriculture production going forward. Of course, most of them are supportive to input demand. To the extent that crop production increases, it would be required that input applications and technology adoption moves along with it.
You touched on biofuels in your presentation, but I think this question relates just to the discussion in the previous question we had here. Is it possible the world puts biofuel mandates on pause for the global grain supply-demand imbalance to catch up?
Yes. I think that is possible, that in some cases, especially in cases where there are biofuel mandates in developing countries, that you could see a priority placed on food production and meeting food demand. Of course, we saw yesterday, the US EPA announced the Renewable Fuel Standard mandates that were up compared to some expectations. In this environment, with energy prices being as high as they are and energy prices being tight, the crops definitely have value in meeting energy security as well as food security, and especially as we look longer term at meeting emissions targets.
Had a couple questions, I guess, on the comments you've made about the structural change and, you know, and these come particularly on the crop price side. The question was: The last time crop prices structurally moved upwards due to a demand shock from the expanded use of ethanol in 2006, does your outlook call for a prolonged supply shock instead of a temporary one from the war, or are there other factors you are considering?
The scenarios outlined in the presentation basically look at trend production, trend area and yield increases, as well as trend consumption in the base case. There is always the potential that production grows at above trend levels and that yields move to above trend levels, which would add to that or that consumption falls below trend rates. In terms of the situation in Russia and Belarus, the main driver we believe there is that like the production in Ukraine will be most down in the 2022 growing season. Going forward, we expect that production will plateau at historical levels. We don't believe that the historical trend rate of growth in that region is sustainable and that in a post-conflict world.
It's really a stabilization or a removal of the growth in that region over time that contributes to that tightness.
Just got a couple questions on nitrogen that have come in here. The first being: Can you discuss current levels of European nitrogen production? There were curtailments earlier this year, but European gas prices were still high, but they've moderated recently. Now, how do you see European nitrogen production evolving in the second half of 2022?
Yeah. We believe that most of the nitrogen production in Europe is running today, albeit some plants are likely operating at lower rates. We saw an announcement this morning out of the U.K. of a permanent closure of a plant there that hasn't been running. Going forward, we think that the level of production in Europe will increase relative to 2022 levels, which we think will be down on a nitrogen basis in the range of 2 million tons compared to 2020 levels. However, we think that the volatility and high level of natural gas prices will continue to lead to lower than historical average operating rates in that region.
In terms of the second half of the year, the forward TTF gas curve continues to be in that $30 per MMBtu through the remainder of the year. We're at the point in the year right now where, seasonally, gas supplies tend to be highest, and you tend to see prices at lower levels. I know the IEA was out talking about the potential for significant increases in prices or tightness in the supply-demand balance in the winter months if there is a severe winter in Europe. That's certainly a factor to watch as we get into the fourth quarter of this year and first quarter of 2023.
The second question, nitrogen related is, the Dangote Group brought online a significant amount of urea capacity in Nigeria over the past year, but it was stranded due to port issues. Do you have any market intel on Nigerian urea exports?
No, we know that the first plant was brought up, but as you say, they have struggled to export that supply. The second plant, we've seen mixed reports that is commissioning, but also that natural gas supplies for that plant are not readily available, so operating rates may be lower than expected. That certainly is a region where, between the two Dangote plants and the additional Indorama plant, where there is added supply offsetting some of that lost volume from Russia, Ukraine and Europe in 2022.
We'll shift gears back to potash. We had another one come in here, related to Belarus situation. Is the ability of the U.S./U.N. intervention highest in opening port access of Belarus potash through Lithuania? Is this the biggest supply-side risk?
Yes. I think in terms of the magnitude of the volume being constrained from Belarus at the moment, really exports are very minimal levels because of that port restriction. If there were to be an arrangement that or agreement to remove U.S. sanctions, and assuming that Lithuanian government removes the rail restrictions, if those sanctions are reduced and full access to Klaipėda were put in place again, that would. You would expect that the shipments would increase fairly rapidly. The other challenge then once the restrictions are removed is for Belaruskali to find buyers to purchase it. As we talked about earlier, there is a potential for trade flow shifts.
It would take some time to come up with those alternative shipping arrangements, and it would also take some time to ramp the production back up again. I think that's true for both Belaruskali and Russian producers as well. Depending on how much work is being done to maintain the mines as they're shut down, it could take a considerable amount of time to restart production after the restrictions are removed.
I do wonder, in terms of being skeptical of a potential agreement for opening up Belarusian supplies, whether there would be an appetite to have the agreement put in place to have Ukraine grain shipped through Belarus and through Lithuania to port and to come up with an agreement where all sides move onto the same page. It is viewed to be a relatively low probability.
Okay, we have time for a couple more questions. Had a couple come in here just maybe to elaborate a bit more on what we've seen in North America through the spring season and how that could translate, you know, really through the rest of the growing season. Really I'll combine them, but I guess the focus on what did we see here through the planting season in terms of any product mix shifts and acreage shifts. Then how do we see that developing through the growing season, you know, with like, I guess the same lens, Jason, in terms of any impacts that that will have on input demand, you know, given the slower start to the spring planting?
Sure. I think if we look back to where the acreage was in the Prospective Plantings report, we would have expected, given the market conditions, in particular the outperformance of corn prices versus soybeans, between that time and the start of the planting season, that we would have seen a fairly significant increase in corn acreage relative to soybeans versus the Prospective Plantings report. Given the planting delays that have occurred, we believe that the acreage will end up relatively close to where the USDA Prospective Plantings report is. There's still uncertainty obviously, and there's a range of potential outcomes, but somewhere in that range seems to make sense.
In terms of the impact on input demand, we believe that the ammonia season was constrained by the constrained planting season, which should support a really strong topdress and side dress season for urea and UAN, respectively. It is important to note that the regions that were able to get in and plant the crops as expected are the highest input using areas like Illinois and Iowa, were able to get in about as expected. The areas having the biggest challenges, like North Dakota, are lower input intensive regions.
As we go through the growing period, assuming that crop conditions look good, we expect growers to apply crop protection products and nutritionals in order to boost yield potential, particularly in this pricing environment.
Okay. I'll end with this last one. I mean, do you see any potential? You know, there's been some talk of producers being able to accelerate expansion of new capacity, and I think this question referenced BHP in particular. Maybe just talk, Jason, to your view on, I mean, do you see any acceleration of capacity expansions? Ultimately, what would be some of the challenges to do so?
Yeah, we have seen that BHP, you mentioned, has said they plan to accelerate the development of Jansen. It's very hard to accelerate development of a massive greenfield mine as that is. There's a limited ability to accelerate beyond what's planned. We know that other Canadian producers are looking at options to boost production as well. That still falls a long way short of the reduction in Russia and Ukraine. As mentioned, or Russia and Belarus. As mentioned, Russia and Belarus were expected to make up about 60% of the capacity additions through 2025 in potash.
That region is typically important in terms of adding new supplies and the new projects there will be at minimum delayed as we go over the next five years.
Great. Thank you, Jason. Appreciate your time today. That is all the time we have for questions. I thank everyone for joining us and hope you found this session valuable. We do look forward to you joining us for tomorrow's virtual investor update meeting. Have a great day.