Argus Sulphur dated 26 May 2022 cited China April sulfur imports of 719,800 tonnes, up 24 percent year on year, while DAP and MAP exports fell 157 percent and 52 percent year on year to 195,000 tonnes and 179,000 tonnes as prolonged customs inspections constrained phosphate outflows from mid-April. The sample is at https://view.argusmedia.com/rs/584-BUW-606/images/Argus%20Sulphur%20%282022-05-26%29.pdf.
Sulfur imports up, phosphate exports down, is the mixed-policy month. Plants still pulled feedstock. They could not ship the same DAP and MAP. October 2021 NDRC-linked inspections had started the constraint. Mid-April 2022 prolonged it. July's de-facto quota would finish it. April is the hinge between inspections and quota.
Alberta recovered sulfur still leaves mainly through Vancouver. 719,800 tonnes of Chinese imports is a seaborne bid Canadian granules participated in. Tampa $481 in early April, USGS, is the Florida print in the same weeks. Vancouver FOB heading toward the May $476-480 sample is the Pacific print. Three expensive numbers, one inspection regime that had not yet crashed sulfur because import pull remained.
Second-quarter Chinese sulfur imports of 2.4 million tonnes, up 50 percent, include this April and the June 948,000 tonne peak. April's 719,800 tonnes is not the peak month. It is the month phosphate exports already plunged while sulfur still arrived. That lag is why first-half 2022 could be a sulfur boom and a DAP bust at the same time.
TFI's plus 198 percent sulfur cost through March is why global phosphate margins were already stressed before April's DAP export plunge. War-risk after 24 February added freight and credit cost. Chinese inspections added a third constraint. July added a fourth. Sulfur priced them in sequence, not all on one day.
Canada's tonne share of the 719,800 is not broken out in the sample paragraph. Treat April as a national Chinese import print. Vancouver's first-half-heavy 2.39 million tonne January-October total includes whatever Canadian cargoes cleared into this bid.
195,000 tonnes of DAP exports and 179,000 tonnes of MAP, down 157 and 52 percent, are the processed-phosphate print. Licensed weekly grids are not restated. These figures are the public sample's China customs table.
Figures follow the Argus sample. April sulfur imports up 24 percent while DAP exports plunged is the mixed-policy chapter before the July quota.