All Egyptian urea plants have stopped production today because of a drop in natural gas flows from Israel, with suppliers withdrawing urea offers.
Greek independent Energean has suspended production from its Karish gas field offshore Israel in line with an Israeli government order after the country carried out air and missile strikes against Iran in the early hours of Friday local time.
Production at Israel's two other offshore gas fields — Leviathan and Tamar — may also have been affected. Operator Chevron declined to comment, beyond stating that its employees and facilities were safe. One source told Argus that output at Leviathan has been suspended.
Leviathan has a production capacity of 1.2bn ft³/d (12.36bn m³/yr), while Tamar's production capacity is 1.1bn ft³/d. Both fields supply gas to Egypt.
Egypt has bought at least 140 LNG cargoes for delivery across the rest of this year and next year. But limited import infrastructure and capacity will likely keep urea production outlook uncertain in the near term. Production will be vulnerable to further fluctuations, because of the geopolitical situation in the region.
At least five Egyptian urea plants with a combined capacity of around 3.29mn t/yr stopped production on 17 May, following initial reductions a week earlier. Operating rates at the country's urea plants are estimated at 70-80pc of capacity since 9 June.
