Tag: Prices

Alistair Wallace, Head of Fertilizer Research, Argus Media, assesses price trends and the market outlook for nitrogen.

Ammonia supplies have been curtailed by production shutdowns, including Kaltim and PT PAU in Indonesia, SABIC and Ma’aden in Saudi Arabia, Sorfert in Algeria and Chinese gas-based producers. There have also been gas curtailments in Iran and Trinidad.

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

The turning of a new calendar year is a predictable waypoint in our lives. That is why it has always traditionally been a time for reflection on the past and looking to the future. Therefore, given how 2020 had turned out, perhaps there was an inevitable hope that the turning of the New Year and the start of 2021 might see an improvement in things in general, and of course the trajectory of the pandemic in particular, especially now that several vaccines have been approved for use in record time, and a massive programme of vaccination has begun across the world.

After many years of slow decline, Canadian sulphur exports have begun to rise slightly, but dwindling US markets are seeing a move towards more sulphur forming to expand export opportunities.

Construction work has begun on a new hydrocracking complex for the Assiut refinery in Egypt, in the central Nile valley, according to TechnipFMC plc, who won the $1 billion engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for the project. The contract involves construction of new processing units including a vacuum distillation unit, a diesel hydrocracking unit, a delayed coker unit, a distillate hydrotreating unit and a hydrogen production unit which will use TechnipFMC’s proprietary steam reforming technology.

The global pandemic and new wave of lockdowns in some regions continue to pose a level of uncertainty to oil demand and in turn sulphur recovery. There are positive signs in the macro economic picture on the back of the vaccine rollout but significant question marks remain.

Metal markets are used to ups and downs, and, as we discuss elsewhere in this issue, this year has seen more than most, mainly thanks to the virus that is still keeping us indoors – as I write this, the UK has just moved back into a second national ‘lockdown’. However, this year has seen the fortunes of one metal in particular simply rise and rise – nickel.

A look back at some of the major events of 2020 for the sulphur and sulphuric acid industries, as well as a look forward as to how 2021 might look.

Demand for oil in developed countries was already falling before the coronavirus outbreak, and consumption growth is slowing in the developing world. Peak oil demand may arrive in the next decade. Coupled with more reinjection of sour gas rather than sulphur extraction, could we be seeing falling elemental sulphur production in a decade or so?