Slower period for US fertilizers has industry not overly concern that railroad dispute continues

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Although the Canadian railroad labor strife is poised to carry on further, US fertilizer participants are not growing overly concern as this action comes at a slower time of the year for domestic applications and fresh buying.

With it being late August most of the attention of domestic growers are either on advancing harvesting campaigns or commencing those efforts soon, with some locations still tending to mature crops.

There were also strong summer refilling efforts, which together is overall keeping the pull for nutrients light for most products although volume of nitrogen, phosphate and potash have continued to move over August on barges and terminals.

As a source said they had zero concerns so far and not hearing that the situation is concerning customers either, “I assume if it persists there will be. It’s just happening at a time of year that it isn’t impactful enough to our industry.”

The railroad strike appeared to have been resolved on 22 August when the government directed the matter to the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) for binding arbitration, with Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) having said they were preparing to begin running.

Then on Friday labor union Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) issued a strike notice for 26 August, against railroad Canadian National (CN) with approximately 6,500 unionized employees set to withdraw their service starting Monday.

As there was prior to the start of this strike activity, there is also optimism from some that this will not be a protracted dispute.

The US is about to enter a period of what has been anticipated to be good post-harvest demand, with a source saying a work stoppage “could be an issue then but generally these things resolve quickly.”

Earlier this week industry group Fertilizer Canada said disruptions to rail services across the country will cost the fertilizer industry millions per day in lost sales revenue, with an average of 69,000 tonnes of fertilizer product transported per day.

75% of all fertilizer produced and used in Canada is moved by rail, with minimal transportation alternatives, with 90% of those volumes which are destined for the US market delivered by rail.