LONDON (Tx21.Com.Cn news)--Ukrainian ammonia producers are announcing plant shutdowns in a bid to balance supply and demand amid a weak market, market sources said on Friday.

Sources said that Ukrainian producers were reluctantly coming to terms with the idea that there is no choice but to shut production, as demand was unlikely to improve in the short term.

Odessa Port Plant (OPZ) has 20,000 tonnes of stock and is expected to shut down one of its ammonia lines shortly. The producer will continue to run two urea lines, but at 80% capacity.

One line at Severodonetsk went down on 14 November and Gorlovka may shut down one line in December.

These plans come in the wake of a producer selling last week at prices below production costs in the hope that the market would turn soon.

In Russia, Rossosh was also reported to be considering reducing production and Togliatti will have 100,000 tonnes less ammonia available in November or December following a reduction in output.

The ammonia market had dropped dramatically over the past month on weak demand from both fertilizer and industrial customers.

Western European producers had also announced plant shutdowns due the weak market conditions. Yara closed ammonia and urea production at Le Havre in France and Ferrara in Italy and reduced production at Sluiskil, Netherlands. 

BASF has also announced plans to reduce or shutdown production at a number of plants, including temporarily shutdowns of the ammonia plants at Ludwigshafen, Germany, and Antwerp, Belgium. 

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