VINACHEM

Northwest Europe ammonia-to-hydrogen assessment arrested its recent slide by remaining largely flat in mid-April with premiums to fossil-fuel based methods increasing in the process.

The ammonia-to-hydrogen northwest Europe assessment posted a small rise of just €0.01/kg to €4.61/kg on 20 April, some €2.03/kg lower than the assessment recorded at the beginning of March.

Natural gas-based hydrogen production methods dropped in value during the week, although losses were less than €0.10/kg on a weekly basis with European hubs largely unchanged overall.

Both front-month based unabated steam methane reforming (SMR) and low carbon autothermal reforming (ATR) hydrogen production held discounts of €1.03-1.32/kg below imported ammonia-for-hydrogen.

Baseload electrolysis in the Netherlands lost the most amount of value during the week, down €0.20/kg to €6.44/kg on 20 April, but still comfortably higher than other methods.

AMMONIA MARKET

Interest in spot ammonia remains weak in Europe, nonetheless, five contract cargoes are expected to arrive in northwest Europe by the end of the month from the US and Trinidad.

Some demand has been reported from Turkey, however, there is limited buying interest with market participants in no hurry to secure volumes amid the bearish market sentiment.

In Asia, Taiwan bought ammonia from Indonesia at a low level, otherwise demand was muted, with the US market for ammonia volumes beginning to pick up at the beginning of their season.

GAS MARKET

The ICIS Dutch TTF May ’23 contract tracked largely sideways during the week with market participants unsure of future price direction with mixed fundamentals seen.

Data from ICIS Analytics showed that storage stocks across Europe were comfortably higher on an annual basis at the beginning of the 21 April gas day, 653TWh compared to 343TWh.

However, injection so far during the Summer ’23 delivery period have been slow, with stocks increasing by 21TWh so far this April compared to the 43TWh for the 1-20 April 2022 stock build.