Ammonia: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Ammonia is made by combining nitrogen from air with hydrogen, usually from natural gas and in China from coal. Gas is most of its cost, so prices follow gas, plus farm demand for nitrogen fertiliser and shipping costs.
Proxy US PPI: nitrogenous fertilizer manufacturing index (BLS base period) · monthly, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026There is no free public price for ammonia itself, so this tab uses the closest public series as a stand-in. Read the numbers as an indication, not as the price of this exact item.
What its price moves with
Selected linkAmmonia and Natural gas
Monthly changes 0.13 little or none correlation 12-month changes 0.78 strong correlation Last 5 years 0.11 monthly changes Lead or lag +1 mo Natural gas tends to lead by 1 month (r 0.28) Price function, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026 Ammonia ≈ 162.1 × (Natural gas)0.36 R² 0.58 On this fit, a 10% higher natural gas price goes with a 3.5% higher ammonia price over the long run. Units: index (BLS base period) and $/mmbtu.Chart: Ammonia and Natural gas prices rebased to 100 at Jan 2006, log scale
Both prices rebased to 100 at Jan 2006, on a log scale so equal percentage moves look the same size.Chart: Ammonia price against Natural gas price, monthly, log scales, with fitted line
Each dot is one month; paler dots are older (2006), darker dots recent (2026); the ringed dot is the latest month. The dashed line is the fitted price function. Both axes are logarithmic.Gas provides both the hydrogen and the heat, so European plants close when gas spikes, as in 2022. The nitrogen fertiliser proxy moves with European gas at 0.13 monthly and 0.78 yearly, reflecting slow pass-through.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsImporters such as India rely on LNG for much of their fertiliser gas, so Asian LNG prices set their production cost. The Japan LNG price, largely oil-indexed, moves with the proxy at 0.22 monthly and 0.78 yearly.
weak co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsChina, the largest producer, makes most of its ammonia from coal, so Chinese coal costs set its export competitiveness. Australian coal moves with the proxy at 0.22 monthly and 0.74 yearly.
weak co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsMost ammonia is turned into urea at the same site, so urea prices drive ammonia margins. Middle East urea moves with the US fertiliser proxy at 0.27 monthly and 0.82 yearly.
weak co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsMaize is the most nitrogen-hungry major crop, so corn prices shape how much fertiliser farmers buy. Maize moves with the proxy at 0.25 monthly and 0.66 yearly. Higher grain prices encourage heavier application the next season.
weak co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsAmmonia is being trialled as a carbon-free shipping fuel and hydrogen carrier, which could add large new demand. It shares the same proxy index here, so no separate statistics are shown.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.How to read these numbers
Correlation of monthly changes (the number in the coloured pill) compares how much each price moved, month by month, since 2006 or the first month both series exist. It runs from −1 to +1: near +1 the two usually rise and fall in the same months, near 0 there is no link, and a negative number means they tend to move in opposite directions. Above 0.7 is strong, 0.4 to 0.7 moderate, 0.2 to 0.4 weak.
12-month changes compare year-on-year moves, which shows whether two prices share the same cycles even when the month-to-month noise differs.
Price function is a straight-line fit of the two prices on logarithmic scales: price ≈ k × (partner price)β. β is how much this price moves, in per cent, for a 1% move in the partner over the whole period, and R² is the share of the variation the fit explains. Two prices that both drift up with inflation can fit well without any real link, so read it together with the monthly correlation.
Lead or lag checks whether the monthly correlation is clearly higher when one price is shifted by 1 to 6 months.
Correlation is not cause. The reasons on each card explain the economic link; the numbers show how strongly it has shown up in prices. Proxy series are US producer price indexes or related prices and can blur the real link.
Data: World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), October 2026; US Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price indexes, IMF primary commodity prices and US EIA prices via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, retrieved November 2026. Calculations by this site.