Vancouver Fraser Port Authority statistics show Port of Vancouver sulphur at 2,291,630 tonnes in 2021, down from 2,653,284 tonnes in 2020, a 14 percent decline. Fertilizer cargo was 11.3 million metric tonnes. The soft 2021 solid-export year set a low base before the 2022 rebound to 2.79 million tonnes as prices spiked and Alberta remelt economics improved. The 2022 statistics overview is at https://www.portvancouver.com/sites/default/files/2024-08/2022-Stats-Overview_0.pdf.
The five-year ladder from this trough is 2.29 million tonnes in 2021, 2.79 million in 2022, 3.10 million in 2023, 3.35 million in 2024, and 3.51 million in 2025. 2021 is the bottom. Tampa climbed toward $183-$195 in the second half while the harbour had a down year. Price and volume disconnected. Forming plants and unit-train programmes require multi-month visibility. A spring-to-autumn price move alone rarely fills the second half's vessel schedule.
Alberta recovered sulfur still leaves mainly through this stem. Cross-border molten rail from Western Canada into US consumers does not appear in Vancouver sulphur statistics. Provincial recovery could stay busy even when Pacific solid loadings lagged. USGS Canada about 4.9 million tonnes and about 73 percent of US elemental imports for 2017-20 is that rail book. 2.29 million tonnes is the Pacific solid slice, the smallest of the five-year public series.
Heartland's 30 June molten tank and Argus's note on new Western Canada forming projects are the inland capacity that 2021's 2.29 million tonnes under-used. Sultran's chain from nine inland facilities via CN and CPKC to Port Moody and North Vancouver, more than 1,500 gondola cars, is the rail backbone. A 14 percent harbour decline is not a missing railroad. It is stems not programmed when early-year FOB was still healing from 2020.
China 2020 sulfur imports had plunged about 3 million tonnes year on year, Argus, with lower domestic stocks. Into 2021 China remained the world's largest importer, but rising domestic recovered sulfur and planned projects of more than 2 million tonnes a year were expected to reduce import intensity toward 2025. A Vancouver down year inside that Chinese import-dampening story is Pacific demand, not only inland forming.
Tampa began 2021 near about $69 per long ton, USGS MCS 2022, then moved higher as supply issues and demand recovery interacted. Mid-June about $192, BC Insight. Fourth quarter $183. The harbour's 2.29 million tonnes is the volume those later-firm prices did not yet pull west in calendar-year terms. 2022's 22 percent rebound is when they did.
COVID-era refining cuts had constrained recovered sulfur in 2020 even as phosphate began to firm. 2021 is the healing year on price and the trough year on Vancouver tonnes. Two different recoveries. Licensed weekly grids are not restated.
Figures follow VFPA. The 2,291,630 tonne print is the 2021 volume chapter of the five-year ladder.