Argus launches world's first composite nitrogen fertilizer index

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Jul 12, 2012, 06:02 ET

LONDON, July 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Global energy and fertilizer price reporting agency Argus has introduced a new global composite nitrogen fertilizer index in today's Argus FMB Nitrogen report. The new index includes prices for ammonia, urea, UAN solutions, ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulphate. The Argus Nitrogen Index is constructed using 11 pricing points for the Black Sea, the Baltic, the US Gulf, Egypt and the Middle East.

The Argus Nitrogen Index will provide a weekly snapshot of the global nitrogen market, smoothing out product and geographical volatility to present an easily understood composite and representative price. Argus has introduced the new index in response to industry requests.

Argus indexes are widely used across international energy markets for physical and derivative trading. They include the Argus Euro-Bob price, which is the benchmark for northwest European gasoline trading, the ASCI benchmark, which is the reference price used by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq to sell sour crude into the US, and the AFEI, ANSI and cif ARA indexes, which are used for pricing LPG in Europe and Asia Pacific.

"We hope that the new Argus Nitrogen Index will offer the fertilizer industry a useful price reference and potential hedging tool," Argus Media chairman and chief executive Adrian Binks said. "We are always happy to develop new instruments to meet the needs of our customers and the wider fertilizer and energy markets."

For further information:

Seana Lanigan
[email protected]
+44 20 7780 4200

About Argus:
Argus Media is a leading provider of price assessments, business intelligence, market data, consultancy and conferences on the global crude, oil products, natural gas, electricity, coal, emissions, bioenergy, fertilizer and transportation industries. Argus energy and fertilizer prices are widely used by leading companies, governments and international agencies as benchmarks in supply contracts, risk management and planning.

Argus is headquartered in London and has more than 400 staff in offices in Houston, Washington, New York, Portland, Calgary, Santiago, Bogota, Rio de Janeiro, Singapore, Beijing, Tokyo, Sydney, Dubai, Moscow, Astana, Kiev, Porto, Brussels, Johannesburg and other key centres of the energy industry. Argus was founded in 1970 and is a privately held UK-registered company.