en.Wedoany.com Report on Mar 25th, Norwegian company Yara's 850,000-ton-per-year ammonia plant in the Pilbara region of Western Australia has unexpectedly shut down for 4-6 weeks due to technical reasons, exacerbating short-term ammonia supply tightness east of the Suez Canal. Concurrently, Australian explosives group Orica is facing an unplanned outage at its own ammonia facility in New South Wales and is actively seeking alternative overseas supplies.

The shutdown of Yara's Pilbara ammonia plant is the second confirmed incident at an Australian facility within two days. This plant is a major supplier to Orica's Gladstone production site in Queensland. Orica stated in an exchange filing: "Orica is proactively managing the potential impacts of this event by working to secure alternative supply from existing inventory and its diversified global manufacturing and supply network. Our priority is to minimize the impact on customers and maintain supply."

This shutdown comes as market participants seek alternatives for ammonia supplies lost due to transportation difficulties in the Middle East. Although export supply from Southeast and Northeast Asia is relatively ample, the loss of Pilbara production will erode the surplus. Last year, an average of approximately 61,000 tonnes of material per month was shipped from Dampier. Profercy data shows that 738,500 tonnes of ammonia were loaded at Dampier in 2025, with half supplied domestically and the remainder shipped to destinations such as Northeast Asia, Thailand, Indonesia, India, and Chile.

Orica regularly uses the vessel Wincanton to transport material from Newcastle to Gladstone, and this ship may head to Southeast Asian ports in the near term. Given Orica's joint venture in Bontang, Indonesia, the company may procure spot cargoes from that hub. Yara indicated that the impact on annual production will be reduced through advance maintenance, and TAN production is expected to operate largely normally.