Category: Outlook & Reviews

A look at fatal incidents in the ammonia industry over the past two decades.

Market Insight courtesy of Argus Media. Urea: There was a general price upswing for both urea and ammonium nitrate in mid-June, while ammonium sulphate and urea ammonium nitrate (UAN) prices remained weak. Urea prices were pushed up in most regions as traders sought to secure cargoes across the globe – resulting in granular urea deals from the Baltic ($260-280/t f.o.b.), Egypt ($312-335/t f.o.b.), Middle East ($253-280/t f.o.b.) and China ($308-310/t f.o.b.).

In this review article, Hatch’s Jayden Ladebruk, Lyndsay Tran, Amelia Parrenin, and Edward DeRose outline the wide range of phosphoric acid production technologies, and discuss how industry challenges are influencing the choice of phosphoric acid process.

BHP is committed to investing $5.7 billion to complete the first stage of the Jansen project and bring it into operation by the end of 2026. This under-construction Saskatchewan mine will then ramp up to produce more than four million tonnes of potash annually before the end of the decade.

This June marks a milestone for this magazine; a platinum jubilee since the very first issue of the magazine was printed in 1953. It began life as the Quarterly Bulletin of the Sulphur Exploration Syndicate. The Syndicate was created in 1952, and was backed by nine major chemical producers, mainly in Britain and the US, who were concerned about dwindling world supplies of sulphur. Though some of these companies have vanished by the wayside over the years, including F.W. Berk and Co. Ltd, British Titan Products, Brotherton & Co., and Charles Tenant & Sons Ltd, others remain household names to this day, including Monsanto, Courtaulds (now part of Akzo-Nobel), and Dunlop (now owned by Goodyear), while Fisons’ fertilizer division was sold to Norsk Hydro in 1982 and today trades as part of Yara.

The modern sulphur industry is in effect a response to the environmental problems created by the presence of sulphur compounds in oil and gas, and the consequent release of sulphur dioxide when they are burned. The tens of millions of tonnes extracted, formed, traded and used for sulphuric acid production every year would otherwise be entering the atmosphere and causing health issues, especially in major cities, or returning as acid rain. One of the most recent step changes in sulphur recovery has come from the extension of rules on sulphur content of fuels that have been commonplace for road vehicles for many years into the maritime transport sphere. The International Maritime Organisation has mandated a reduction in sulphur content of bunker fuels to 0.5% worldwide, and 0.1% in busy shipping regions that have become designated emissions control areas (ECAs). Because bunker fuels were made from refinery residues, they often had high concentrations of sulphur in them; the limit before 2020 was 3.5%. As a result, a recent paper by two climate scientists calculates that global SO2 emissions have dropped by as much as 10% since 2020 because of the IMO limits. Given that atmospheric sulphur dioxide is responsible for an estimated 20-90,000 preventable deaths per year, this is surely a good thing.

Meena Chauhan, Head of Sulphur and Sulphuric Acid Research, Argus Media, assesses price trends and the market outlook for sulphur.

The centre of gravity of the phosphate industry continues to shift, with Chinese exports less important, and fresh demand coming from India and Brazil.

The 2023 Middle East Sulphur Conference (MEScon 2023) was the biggest sulphur event in the region to date with over 650 attendees representing 23 countries from across the sour gas and sulphur value chain. More than a conference, this annual event offers conversation, collaboration and community, with leaders and experts from across the industry sharing knowledge, best practice and predictions for the future of sulphur.

Indonesian imports have increased in 2023 so far on a year earlier. As new nickel high pressure acid leach projects ramp up, demand for sulphur is expected to increase further. Swing buyers have been importing significant volumes of sulphuric acid, affecting short term sulphur demand in the second quarter. It remains to be seen if this will continue, we expect sulphur demand to ramp up further in the second half of the year, bringing import expectations for the year to around 2 million t.