CHEMICALS
Fertilizers and Nutrients
World's Most Productive Companies
Agricultural Chemicals in a Changing Global Landscape
This Fertilizers and Nutrients peer group comprises companies specializing in crop nutrients and agricultural chemicals, including producers of ammonia, urea, nitrates, phosphates, and potash. These firms operate at the intersection of the chemicals and agriculture sectors, often running capital-intensive production facilities (like fertilizer plants) that convert natural gas or mineral ores into high-volume commodity products. They are highly sensitive to global commodity cycles, energy prices (especially natural gas as feedstock), and farming demand driven by crop prices and weather patterns. From 2004 to 2024, performance for these companies was the weakest across all Chemical peer groups. This group experienced extreme volatility between 2019 and 2024, benefiting from the COVID-era recovery and high nutrient prices through 2022, then experiencing a sharp contraction as feedstock and freight costs rose. By 2022, the war in Ukraine and related sanctions on key exporters had caused a sharp spike in natural gas prices, disrupting the global fertilizer trade and driving up fertilizer prices significantly.
The market environment is characterized by cyclical swings in fertilizer demand (shifts in food consumption), international trade flows (export restrictions, supply-impacting tariffs), and pressures for improved energy efficiency to reduce emissions (carbon-intensive nature of fertilizer production).
Top 100 World's Most Productive Companies - Fertilizers and Nutrients
Productivity Snapshot
The Fertilizers & Nutrients peer group experienced one of the most severe productivity swings in the Chemicals industry, with only three of the five companies seeing the surge in productivity that most saw from 2020 to 2023.
- This peer group’s productivity growth declined by 46.2% from 2004 to 2024, a rate higher than that of any other group within the Chemicals Industry.
- Over the last six years, four of the five companies within this peer group experienced a decline in productivity, with an average 20% drop in productivity between 2019 and 2024.
- The 2020–2022 surge produced 33.9% growth, driven by strong pricing and utilization, before productivity declined by 38% from 2022 to 2024.
- Sixty % of these companies experienced negative productivity growth in 2023 and 2024.
- CF Industries earned its place among the LNS 2025 World’s Most Productive Companies with a significant uptick in productivity, achieving 12.7% growth over the last six years, more than double the all-industry average, as peer companies experienced a double-digit decline. As most of these companies struggled with rising costs and oversupply due to fertilizer prices returning to 2022 highs, CF maintained a strong safety focus while improving operational discipline in energy sourcing and plant reliability. Expansion into high-demand nitrogen products, strategic capacity investments, as well as automation and AI-based process controls, optimize production throughput across its ammonia and urea production networks, allowing the company to outperform peers.
