Price-trend reporting noted Kuwait's Al Zour complex entering the sulfur market with operations expected to begin in early 2022 after late-2021 commissioning progress. New Kuwaiti solid sulfur added to the Middle East export slate just as Chinese phosphate policy tightened global phosphate-sulfur linkages. The review is at https://www.bcinsight.crugroup.com/2021/11/30/price-trends-54/.
Argus had expected just over 3 million tonnes of new sulfur capacity in 2021, concentrated in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, with COVID delays affecting some Middle East startups. Al Zour is the Kuwaiti slice. Al Fadhili's more than 1 million tonnes a year ramp is the Saudi slice. Barzan's about 800,000 tonnes a year, delayed into 2021, is the Qatari slice. Three Gulf projects, one incremental seaborne supplier region.
Alberta recovered sulfur still leaves mainly through Vancouver. Incremental Gulf solid is the competing origin into China, India, and Morocco. When Al Zour tonnes arrive as Chinese inspections constrain export DAP, two opposite forces hit the same CIF. November 2021 price firmness, Middle East FOB $223-230 on 28 October, shows the demand-side force winning that month. 2023's surplus would show the supply-side force winning later.
May 2022 KSP at $470 per tonne FOB, Argus sample, is Al Zour-era Kuwaiti solid priced at the spike. August 2022 QSP at $77 is the crash those incremental tonnes populated. Commissioning in a firming market is not the same as commissioning into a surplus. Al Zour did both, six months apart, if the early-2022 operations expectation held.
USGS later put UAE production near 6.0 million tonnes in 2022. Kuwait is a smaller but material Gulf exporter. World output about 80 million tonnes in 2021, MCS 2022, then about 82 million in 2022, is the planet these ramps sit on. Incremental Gulf capacity did not prevent $481 Tampa. It populated $90 Tampa.
Canadian forming projects noted by Argus in mid-2021 are the Pacific counterpart: more granules from existing Alberta recovery, not new Claus. Al Zour is new refining sulfur. Two different supply stories. Vancouver's 2.29 million tonne 2021 year did not need Al Zour to be down 14 percent. It needed Chinese import intensity and early-year stem programming.
Licensed weekly grids are not restated. The early-2022 operations expectation is BC Insight and Argus price-trend language, not a Kuwaiti operating certificate.
Figures follow BC Insight. Al Zour entering the sulfur market is the Kuwaiti supply chapter under late-2021 Chinese phosphate policy.