“Full blast”—Yara CEO says there is only one way to respond to the crisis in the Gulf: do everything better

The president’s chief-of-staff was referring to the financial crisis. Today, that same advice could apply to the Iran conflict. The uneasy truce in the Gulf has given business leaders a chance to take stock. If trade starts flowing once again through the Strait of Hormuz, inflation risk will recede. The ebullience of the markets, hardly tempered as rockets flew and bombs exploded, will continue, probably with even more vigor. Those exposed to the conflict—oil producers, high-energy-use firms, and anyone who relies on global supply chains—will see a degree of normality return. Yara International is one of them. The $12bn market cap firm produces 8% of all the world’s fertilizer. Without fertilizer, food production would collapse. The Strait is one of the most important supply routes for the world’s nitrogen-providing products. Yara is also the biggest consumer of gas in Europe. When the energy price spikes, investors start worrying about the bottom line. “The Strait of Hormuz is the most important shipping channel for the export of urea fertilizer in the world,” Yara chief executive, Svein Tore Holsether, tells me. “About one-third of traded or exported urea fertilizer goes through the Strait and there is significant production in that region. Iran is a big producer.” “Every day that passes, fertilizer is not being produced, and there’s limited inventory capabilities also—so ships are full. That means that products are not finding their way to the market.” For Yara—#300 on the Fortune 500 Europe list—downside risks may appear insurmountable. The opposite is true. Last month, it announced quarterly profits of $896m, beating forecasts. Shares rose 4% as the price of urea (a central component of the fertilizer Yara sells) hit levels not seen since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. “When everyone knows that half of the food produced in the world is a