Sulphur World Symposium 2026 — Supply squeeze steals summit

Possibly it was sulphur prices at several hundred dollars per tonne, possibly it was the enticement of the striking city of Vancouver, but this year’s Sulphur World Symposium attracted a record attendance of 190 delegates from 26 countries, almost 50% up on the previous year’s attendance.

Agronomy

Tuesday afternoon’s agronomy session included papers by Professor Jeff Schoenau of the University of Saskatchewan, who looked at sulphur fertilization of the Canadian prairies. The prairie is a unique growing environment, with a relatively limited growing season due to temperatures and relatively little rainfall. Some 90% of soil sulphur present is thus in well drained, aerated surface soils, either bonded to organic carbon or present as an ester sulphate.

The region grows a number of sulphur-hungry crops, but particularly canola, which represents 48% of regional production. Only around 1-3% of organic sulphur is mineralised to plant available sulphate in a growing season. Sulphur can also be the most variable macronutrient, with parts of the same field showing a variance of up to three orders of magnitude in sulphur content, necessitating the frequent use of sulphur probes to measure sulphur soil content. Sulphur is taken up more slowly than other nutrients, over the whole growing season, which can mean a deficiency can be recovered with a relatively late sulphur fertilizer application.

Lyle Cowell of Nutrien Canada said that “if you are growing crops, you are managing sulphur, whether you realise it or not.” Like Prof Schoenau, he also considered ‘sulphur in a cold climate’ and the slow mineralisation of sulphur in the cold dry climate of Saskatchewan. Because of the slow uptake he suggested treating sulphur application as an aggregate over a four year crop rotation cycle.

Canola production has driven increased use of sulphur fertilizers in Canada – both canola output and sulphur input have tripled since 2000. New Fertilizer Canada guidelines out this year will include sulphur management for the first time. Elemental sulphur fertilizers require more concerted management compared to sulphates, and are best distributed on the surface to oxidise more quickly.

Economic outlook

Dr Kari Heerman of the Brookings Institution presented the global economic output. In spite of the large shocks of the past few years – the covid pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, US tariff policies and the war in Iran – global trade remains strong and indicators point to continued expansion. However, the policy, geopolitical and security environment is changing global trade, with pressures on how the system operates.

Firstly, US tariffs are higher and more variable, with various exemptions by country or sector. Market access is now more conditional, although within the North American USMCA area, trade and integration is actually increasing.

Secondly, access to transit routes is now more contingent. The Strait of Hormuz crisis is only the latest disruption, with the Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping leading to the rerouting of trade from the Suez Canal to the Cape of Good Hope.

Thirdly, supply has become more strategic and less market determined, with export controls on many fertilizers, and the risk that these are used to achieve broader strategic goals (eg control of chips, batteries, rare earths etc) rather than serve market interests. The system is resilient and has been able to adapt, but access to markets, transits and inputs is increasingly shaped by policy. Firms are increasingly managing policy and geopolitical constraints and not just optimising costs.

Mason Hamilton, VP of economics and research for API looked at the effect of the Iran war on energy markets. Ship flows through the Strait of Hormuz continue to be at very low levels with little sign of this changing. Damage to energy infrastructure will mean that any recovery will take a long time.

The price impact is a function of the scale and the duration of disruption. Oil and natural gas prices have risen sharply and remain volatile. While the US is relatively insulated on the gas front, prices in Asia and Europe have spiked to >$15/MMBtu. Some petroleum product prices have surpassed the levels seen when Russia invaded Ukraine, with jet fuel especially effected.

Nevertheless, in inflation adjusted terms the impact is so far lower than either in 2021-22, 2008-09, or 1979, and is so far roughly equivalent to the 1990 Gulf War. The duration will be the key to the eventual total impact; 16 million bbl/d of oil normally transits Hormuz, with China, India, South Korea and Japan the main customers. India also sources 90% of its LPG imports from the Gulf.

About 13 million bbl/d of Gulf oil production is currently shut in. There will be demand destruction, and a likely pivot to coal in India and Indonesia. On the LNG side the US is rapidly expanding export capacity, expected to rise by 40% by the end of 2027, which will fill in some of the gap left by Qatar.

There will also be a production prise response for oil, but there will be a lag. For Asia, this could end up being equivalent to the impact of the 1970s oil embargo on Europe and the US in public policy terms.

North American project update

Wednesday morning finished with an update on new sulphur consuming projects in the US. The US produced 7.5 million tonnes of sulphur in 2025, and both imported and exported around 1.3-1.4 million tonnes. However, US sulphur demand is increasing at a time of falling supply.

Ross Guenther of Northern Nutrients – a fertilizer joint venture with Shell Canada – updated delegates on progress with his firm’s sulphur fertilizer facility. Capacity is currently 50,000 t/a, with an expansion to 150,000 t/a due for completion in 4Q 202, producing ArcticS – urea-enhanced sulphur (70% S) using Shell’s Thiogro technology.

Matt Weaver of Ioneer detailed the Rhyolite Ridge lithium/boron project. This will produce 25,000 t/a of lithium and 150,000 t/a of boric acid – the US added boron to its list of critical minerals in 2025. The project includes a 2,500 t/d acid plant and will consume 450 t/d of sulphur.

Rene LeBlanc of Lithium Nevada described the Thacker Pass lithium project. This is planned to run in five phases to reach an eventual output of 160,000 t/a, with the first phase due for mechanical completion in late 2027, and first production at the end of 2027 or start of 2028; around 40,000 t/a of lithium carbonate for batteries.

Critical minerals

This overview was complemented by the first paper on Thursday morning, by Erasto Almeida of the SAFE Centre for Critical Minerals Strategy, which is partnering the US State Department in looking at US dependence on critical minerals, especially in the fields of batteries, semiconductors and alumin(i)um.

Jointly via the MINVEST programme they are financing projects to try and overcome compliance, market, technical and geopolitical risk in overcoming the aversion for private capital to developing projects in a way which works for the security of the US. It is looking at policies to revitalise domestic production, price mechanisms to support developments, long term offtake commitments, and stockpiling critical minerals.

Phosphate outlook

Mosaic’s Andy Jung presented the phosphate market outlook. Crop prices are ticking higher, he said, but 2025 was a relatively lacklustre year. Farmers are facing trouble affording inputs whose prices are rising. Fertilizer supply losses from conflicts could dramatically tighten global agricultural commodity markets, leading to grain stocks likely heading into low levels comparable to those seen in the early 1970s and mid-1990s over the next couple of years. This could be compounded by an El Nino developing in late 2026 leading to hotter and drier weather in India and southeast Asia.

Raw materials costs (especially for sulphur) were pressuring phosphate margins even before the Iran conflict, and at current levels phosphate production will start to be shut in and the run of prices will be forced to fall. The US imports significant amounts of fertilizer from the Middle East and the present conflict will heavily impact phosphates and urea.

Meanwhile, Brazilian crop production growth, which has been due to expansion of farmed acreage, could see thinner yields due to under-application of fertilizer in the upcoming summer (southern hemisphere) planting season from October 2026-March 2027.

China’s export pullback will remove tonnage from the market at the same time that domestic lithium iron phosphate use continues to grow. Overall, 2026 global phosphate shipments could shift sharply lower due to restricted supply, and that for a market which has not recovered to the trend growth line since the falls of 2022.

Sulphur and acid outlook

Finally, the sulphur and sulphuric acid market outlook was presented by CRU’s Dr Peter Harrison. The sulphur deficit has been deepening, driving prices to new highs. Chinese acid export restrictions have also been pushing acid prices higher. Phosphate producers have been most affected, with the nickel and copper sectors less exposed to high prices; nickel producers still have a small margin even at $1,100/t sulphur, assuming a nickel price of around $18,000/t, and copper producers still have a significant margin at current copper prices. However, there are still logistical issues for copper producers in the DRC/Zambia to actually receive sulphur and acid.

The Iran crisis has hit hard, as the Middle East supplies around 45% of global sulphur trade, some 20 million t/a. Middle Eastern supply is still running at around 70% utilisation, but lost production over the eight weeks that the war had been going already amounts to 1.2 million tonnes, including 500,000 t/a lost from Qatar’s shutdown if Ras Laffan after drone strikes.

But the conflict is also cutting exports over and above lost production, while in some cases, such as SATORP in Saudi Arabia, sulphur is being poured to block rather than being exported. Around 800,000 tonnes of exports were lost in March and 1.1 million tonnes in April because fewer vessels were being loaded.

Several major importers rely heavily upon supply from the Middle East; up to 93% of South Africa’s imports, 84% of India’s and 76% of Indonesia’s imports came from the region last year. For China the figure is 56%, and Brazil 42%. This comes on top of a sulphur market that was already in deficit from 2023, and a 2025 that was a weak year for supply from existing assets with strikes at Russian production from Astrakhan among other major outages.

Assuming that supply does return later this year, there is likely to be a bounce back in supply in 2027, but some projects due to come onstream this year or next have already been put back, and short term demand destruction is inevitable, with the market likely short by 3-4 million tonnes of sulphur this year. Stock drawdowns will struggle to keep pace with supply losses. Fertilizer demand is still expected to grow, but the contribution to sulphur demand from metals processing will increase.

On the acid front, Peter said that the Chinese export ban remains the major factor, rewriting acid trade routes. Exposure here is greatest in Indonesia, but Saudi Arabia, Chile and Morocco are all also affected. The traded acid market is expected to shrink by nearly 4 million t/a this year to 13.1 million t/a, with Saudi likely to switch towards sulphur burning. Some additional exports may come from India, Europe, Japan and Korea, but there will be demand destruction in Chile and southeast Asia.