Section: Features

Sulphur production continues to expand in the Middle East and East and South Asia both from new refineries and major sour gas projects.

A review of papers presented at this year’s Sulphur World Symposium, held by The Sulphur Institute (TSI) in Vancouver, Canada this year from April 28 to 30.

Policy decisions and geopolitical shocks are now the dominant drivers of sulphur and phosphate fertilizer markets, overriding more traditional seasonal fundamentals. The conflict in the Middle East, including the escalation around Iran, has tightened sulphur availability and lifted costs sharply, while China’s export restrictions continue to restrict global phosphate supply.

Sour gas production is costly because hydrogen sulphide and carbon dioxide require extensive sweetening, sulphur recovery, safety, and compliance infrastructure, with sulphur sales helping offset but rarely eliminating those added costs.

Nitrogen markets, and urea in particular, have been impacted by a series of geopolitical shocks in recent years which have driven markets over and above normal market factors such as feedstock and shipping costs, crop prices etc.

For many years confined to pilot projects and feasibility studies, biomass based gasification is seeing rapid take up in China for methanol production and may mark a new era in syngas generation.

A market already characterised by tight supply has been thrown into chaos by the Iran war and reduction of phosphate exports from the Gulf at the knock on effect on sulphur prices, a key input into MAP/DAP production.

While Brazil is the largest consumer, trade in acid in South America has been dominated

The US and Israel attacks on Iran and the Iranian response have thrown commodity markets into chaos, with sulphur and sulphuric acid particularly affected.

The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) has released its final investigation report into the fatal release of hydrogen sulphide at the PEMEX Deer Park Refinery in Texas in October 2024.