The ongoing recovery from Covid-19 has led to an uptick of sulphur from refineries in regions including the US compared with a year ago. As travel around the global improves, increasing fuel demand points to higher operating rates and improved sulphur recovery.
We compare and contrast the 2021 financial performance of selected major fertilizer producers following the publication of fourth quarter results.
Market Insight courtesy of Argus Media
Certain fertilizer prices are likely to remain above $1,000/t well into 2023, according to Moody’s.
Meena Chauhan, Head of Sulphur and Sulphuric Acid Research, Argus Media, assesses price trends and the market outlook for sulphur.
US refiners have upgraded to take advantage of generally cheaper, sourer crude feeds. However, a ban on oil imports from Russia may make that harder to come by.
The ongoing conflict in Russia-Ukraine remains a key focus for the market in the months ahead. It is unclear whether buyers that are currently doing so will permanently choose non-Russian sulphur sources, but trade flow changes are expected to persist through the rest of 2022.
Sulphur prices keep on climbing. A quick check as I was writing this showed some indicators above $600/t, around four times what they were last year. As the title of this editorial suggests, what goes up must of course eventually come back down, but of course as always the question is: when?
Spot ammonia prices made steep losses in west of Suez regions following the $200/t drop in the Tampa May contract price in late April, as supply and demand start to rebalance two months after the removal of Black Sea ammonia exports from the market. Yara has settled the Tampa contract price for May with Mosaic at $1,425/t c.fr, a $200/t drop from April.
Late February saw the diplomatic crisis between Russia and Ukraine abruptly devolve into all-out war, on a scale not seen in Europe since the collapse of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s – some would argue not since the end of the Second World War. At time of writing, the conflict is still barely two weeks old, but has already produced an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe, and a refugee crisis of massive proportions. But over the medium and longer term, together with the international sanctions that have swiftly followed, it also has the power to deliver an economic shock to commodities markets in particular and the world economy in general that may be as bad if not worse than the crash of 2008-9.