Ammonium sulfate, 11 November 2026: Shandong cost fell ¥40/t while the export quote held at $210-215/t fob, and India's rabi subsidy finally landed on the demand side

Standard caprolactam-grade ammonium sulfate was assessed at $210-215/t fob China on 11 November, unchanged on the day. That flat number is the less interesting half of the story. Domestic caprolactam-grade in Shandong softened to ¥1,200-1,220/t ex-works, from ¥1,240-1,250 the day before, which converts to roughly $196-199/t fob after export costs against $202-204 previously. The gap between what it costs to put a tonne on a ship and what it is offered at widened from $6-13/t to $11-19/t in a single session, and no seller used it.

One supplier is quoting standard caprolactam-grade at $212/t fob Shandong this week, which sits where it sat on Tuesday. Enquiries have been about specification and documentation rather than price.

The Shandong line

The ex-works number and the export number are set by different mechanisms, and this week they separated. Shandong caprolactam-grade follows coking and by-product economics on the domestic side: steel output, desulphurisation volumes, and the amount of ammonium sulfate that caprolactam and adipic acid plants are obliged to move regardless of what fertiliser buyers want. That chain gave up ¥40/t. The export offer follows the nitrogen complex, the inspection calendar and an assessment of what December tonnage is worth to a seller who has already sold most of his November.

A seller pricing cost plus a thin margin would have taken $4/t off on Wednesday. Not one did. The read is that the binding constraint on this market is not the cost of production — it is that sellers do not need to move tonnes, and the buyers who would normally test that assumption are waiting on urea.

India’s budget

The Indian cabinet approved Rs623.7bn ($6.65bn) for the nutrient-based subsidy programme covering October 2026 to March 2027, up from Rs379.5bn allocated for the 2025-26 rabi. Ammonium sulfate remains inside the package for imported and domestically produced material, and the government has kept DAP-linked support measures in place while extending that treatment to imported MAP and to imported and domestically produced TSP.

For ammonium sulfate the operative fact is continuity rather than an increase. India first brought imported ammonium sulfate under NBS in the 2025-26 rabi with the subsidy set at Rs9,479/t, and that cover has now been renewed for a second season. A buyer in Gujarat or Maharashtra who was modelling his rabi input cost without a subsidy line on amsul no longer has to.

The timing matters as much as the amount. Subsidy decisions of this kind typically take three to six weeks to appear as enquiries, because importers first settle their landed cost and then test the market. That puts the demand response in December and January shipment windows, not in the cargoes already afloat.

What the top of the range is made of

Standard grade lost $5 at the bottom of its weekly range, to $210-220 from $215-220, and compacted lost $5 at the top, to $225-235 from $225-240. Both ends gave way on the same weekly comparison and both stopped short of a clean break, which leaves the compacting premium in the $10-25/t band it has occupied since late October.

The reason the premium has not collapsed is administrative. Compactors who are not self-regulated lose the ability to apply for export customs inspection after the middle of November. That does not reduce the number of tonnes physically available in December; it reduces the number of tonnes that can legally be declared for export, and the second number is the one that matters. A standard-grade cargo is a producer’s filing problem and producers are already registered. A compacted cargo is a compactor’s filing problem, and part of the compacting sector is running out of time.

The practical consequence for a buyer is a delivery question rather than a price question. Paying a premium for compacted material loading in the second half of December is sensible only if the seller can already file; if he cannot, the premium buys a promise rather than a cargo.

The nitrogen drag

The wider complex kept drifting lower. Egyptian granular for Europe fell $5/t to $500-510/t fob, Middle East granular fell $5/t to $425-435/t fob, and the Nola barge fell $7.50/st to $415-420/st with the month-to-date weighted average at $422.74. Southeast Asian granular slid to $420-435/t fob on the weekly comparison from $430-440, and cfr into the same region to $440-475 from $455-480. Brazilian granular was unchanged at $460-475/t cfr, the one flat line in a falling table.

Ammonium sulfate is bought as nitrogen and as sulphur, and in compound fertilizer it substitutes against urea on the nitrogen unit. A $5/t move in the complex is therefore not background noise for an amsul offer — it is the reference against which a buyer tests it. That the amsul top held at $215 while every comparable nitrogen point fell says the amsul balance is tighter than the nitrogen balance, and the cost line underneath it is what stops the whole range from following urea down.

Two things would break that. An Indian urea tender that clears at a low number would reset the replacement value of nitrogen in one afternoon, and a sustained slide in Shanxi steel-grade and Inner Mongolia material would drag the floor down from below. Neither has happened this week, and the absence of the Indian tender is itself part of why the market is quiet: buyers who need nitrogen are holding, and urea is the product they are holding for.

What to watch

The Turkish requirement is the first indicator. Around 20,000t of standard caprolactam-grade for December shipment is the only sized enquiry currently visible, and it lands in the tightest part of the inspection calendar. A clearance at $215/t fob would confirm that sellers are holding and buyers are simply absent. A clearance at $210/t would say the quiet market has been concealing a seller who needed the tonnage.

The second is whether the cost line keeps falling without the offer following. Another week of Shandong softening against a firm fob would mean the market has decided that December is short, which is a bullish signal that has nothing to do with demand. If instead the offer starts tracking the cost line down, the flat number of 11 November was the last of it.

The third is India, and specifically whether the rabi subsidy renewal produces enquiries before the December loading window closes. That is the only piece of this market that could add real volume rather than move the price of existing volume.

Prices as assessed on 11 November 2026. Market information from our own trading desks and trade sources; figures are indicative and move daily. Ammonium sulfate is offered FOB, CFR and CIF, with payment terms agreed per order and confirmed in the sales contract.