Yara’s Le Havre ammonia-urea plant shuts down on technical incident, restarts same day

Yara’s ammonia and urea plant in Le Havre, France, shut down on May 21 due to a technical incident before restarting later the same day, according to trade reports from Quantum Commodity Intelligence.

The Le Havre facility has a production capacity of approximately 400,000 tonnes of ammonia per year and is one of Yara’s key European nitrogen manufacturing assets. The plant has experienced multiple unplanned shutdowns over the past two years, compounding broader supply uncertainty in European nitrogen markets already strained by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The same-day restart limits the immediate market impact, but the incident adds to a pattern of operational disruptions at European ammonia facilities at a time when EU ammonia imports fell 42% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026 due to the Middle East supply crisis. Ammonia prices in northwest Europe had already been rising ahead of the incident, supported by a 3.5% uptick in June TTF natural gas prices.

Yara has not disclosed details of the technical cause. The company is also managing the ongoing shutdown of its Pilbara ammonia plant in Australia, which was taken offline in late March following power outage damage, and produces 850,000 tonnes of ammonia per year. Repair timelines at Pilbara have not been confirmed.

Source: QCIntel