After the August collapse to $95 per tonne, Argus granular CFR China assessments rebounded to $197.50 per tonne on 12 December 2022 as Chinese buyers leaned on domestic sulfur and import demand stayed selective. The rebound set up a softer but still volatile 2023. The viewpoint is at https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news-and-insights/latest-market-news/2403764-viewpoint-increasing-supplies-pressure-chinese-sulphur.
June's import-price peak near $471 per tonne CIF, IndexBox, and September's $129, down 62.5 percent month on month, bracket the crash. $197.50 in mid-December is a bounce, not a return to $471. Selective imports and domestic recovered sulfur, Argus's 40 percent production-growth call toward 2025, are why China did not have to restock seaborne at spike prices.
Alberta recovered sulfur still leaves mainly through Vancouver. A $197.50 CFR China print is a delivered number. Vancouver FOB under $65 after the crash, Argus, plus Pacific freight, is the Canadian offer into that bounce. First-half stems had already loaded at $476-480 FOB. December is leftover demand and a different netback. Remelt of Alberta block was already becoming marginal.
January-October Chinese imports of 6.65 million tonnes, down 22 percent, had already printed. The December bounce does not rewrite that contraction. IndexBox later put 2022 import value near $2.3 billion, then 2023 volume up 16 percent to 8.8 million tonnes at about $1.1 billion. December 2022 is the value year exiting toward the volume-recovery year.
Tampa fourth quarter at $90 per long ton, USGS, is the Florida rhyme of a market that had stopped being $481. $197.50 CFR China and $90 Tampa are not the same unit or book. They are both post-crash prints. Licensed weekly grids are not restated. The $197.50 figure is Argus open-news CFR.
Huaxicun Commodity Contracts Exchange had stopped sulfur trading from 16 June after authorities deemed it non-standard, removing a domestic paper venue. December physical CFR at $197.50 is the cash market without that paper. Phosphate-export inspections from October 2021 and the July 2022 quota remain the policy stack.
Qatar August QSP at $77 FOB, from $428 in July, is the Gulf marker that had already crashed. A December China CFR bounce to $197.50 does not restore that $428. It sets a volatile 2023 open, which USGS would record as Tampa $90, then $130 in mid-January, then $55 in July.
Figures follow Argus. The mid-December $197.50 CFR bounce is the last 2022 China-price print before 2023's cheap import recovery.