USGS reports fourth-quarter 2022 Tampa prices at $90 per long ton, down from the April peak of $481 per long ton. The year-end collapse completed one of the sharpest sulfur price cycles on record and shifted Canadian remelt economics from strongly profitable to marginal. The PDF is at https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2023/mcs2023-sulfur.pdf.
BC Insight noted the fourth-quarter Tampa drop of $262 per long ton to $90 as the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2020, citing higher US production and weaker processed-phosphate demand. USGS January-August 2022 US production was reported higher year on year as fuel demand recovered. The Atlantic surplus story and the Chinese demand-destruction story arrived together.
Alberta recovered sulfur still leaves mainly through Vancouver. Vancouver FOB had fallen from a midpoint near $478 per tonne to under $65 within about two months, Argus. Keg River, citing Fertecon, reported roughly an 80 percent Vancouver spot decline over about five weeks. Fourth-quarter $90 Tampa is the Florida print of that crash. Soft FOB revived pour-to-block economics for tonnes that could not clear export netbacks.
The harbour still finished 2022 at 2.79 million tonnes sulphur, up 22 percent. Volume programmed in the first half loaded through the collapse. Annual tonnes and fourth-quarter contracts are different series. Readers who only watch $90 will miss the 22 percent. Readers who only watch 2.79 million tonnes will miss that remelt tickets paused.
China's July de-facto phosphate-export quota had cut DAP operating rates to 40 to 50 percent at river ports and about 50 percent in Yunnan and Guizhou by end-July, Argus. Qatar QSP crashed to $77 per tonne FOB in August from $428 in July. Granular CFR China slumped to $95 per tonne on 4 August. Tampa $90 in the fourth quarter is the US molten rhyme, delayed by contract structure.
US elemental unit value about $150 per tonne for 2022, USGS, is the year's average, pulled up by the first-half spike. $90 in the fourth quarter is the exit. 2023 would open near $90, spike to $130 in mid-January, then find $55 in mid-July. The $90 close is the new regime, not a one-month accident.
Mosaic's reduced sulfur consumption through 2022 freed Gulf volume for export into that $90 world. Higher refinery runs added recovered tonnes. Two supply increases, one demand shock. Licensed weekly grids are not restated. The $90 per long ton figure is the USGS contract print.
Figures follow USGS MCS 2023. Fourth-quarter $90 Tampa is the reset that 2023's surplus year inherited.