The ammonium bond that makes operational and investment logic of Incitec Pivot’s explosives and fertiliser wings might well have been rendered less magnetic by the relentless disruption of our new technological age.

Just two minutes after triggering a 5 per cent re-rating of its share price by confirming a profit downgrade of nasty quantum, Incitec confirmed the opening of a strategic review of a fertiliser business whose disappointing interim performance served to mask hard-won improvements to its operational and financial fundamentals.