49% of the world's urea exports pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Urea is the most-used nitrogen fertilizer on Earth. The Haber-Bosch process turns natural gas into ammonia, ammonia into urea, and urea into food. It alone is responsible for feeding ~4 billion people. Half the nitrogen atoms in your body were placed there by this reaction. Qatar's largest urea plant has already shut down. Prices are up 35% in one week. The spring planting window in the Northern Hemisphere is right now. Nitrogen has to be applied at a specific point in the growing cycle. Miss it and the yield loss is permanent for that season. The same 21-mile chokepoint that cut off naphtha to five chemical plants last week is now cutting off the nitrogen that grows our food.
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