Yara International, the world's largest mineral fertiliser producer, ran its European fleet at 75% of capacity through March 2026, curtailing roughly 25% of European production as gas accounted for around 80% of variable costs1. Yara is a Norwegian-headquartered fertiliser company with European plants exposed directly to TTF on the marginal molecule; its disclosure was filed alongside the BASF Q1 reporting window.
Cefic data covered earlier in this topic put European chemicals capacity contraction at roughly 9% between 2022 and 2025, with around 20,000 jobs lost; Cefic is the European Chemical Industry Council, the trade body that tracks sector capacity and employment. Yara's 25% March curtailment is the live quarterly read on that running tally. TTF at €43-47 through the curtailment period sat below the €70 ceiling that triggered the 2022 chemical-sector exit, confirming the damage threshold has migrated downward.
Sodir's March print at 10.8 bcm and 349.3 mcm/day showed Norwegian supply tightening, and the broader storage deficit at 35.4% compounds the cost pressure on European industrials. Long-term gas contract premia shifted Europe's structural cost base above competing jurisdictions during 2022-23; Asian and US chemical capacity built into that gap, and the European fleet now competes against younger plants with a structural gas-cost disadvantage that prevailing TTF does not close.
The European nitrogen fertiliser supply tightens into the spring planting window; import dependence on Russian and Trinidadian product rises through Q2. The industries that survived 2022 are still shedding capacity at lower gas prices than the ones that triggered the original exits, which moves the threshold structurally lower for the next round of closure decisions.
