Despite soft absolute prices, the UAE remained a top-three China origin in 2023 volume terms, about 1.1 million tonnes, IndexBox. Gulf granular sulfur competed with Canadian Vancouver cargoes into Yangtze and southern Chinese phosphate plants whenever freight and FOB spreads aligned. The trade breakdown is at https://www.indexbox.io/blog/china-sulphur-imports-2023/.
Canada at about 1.2 million tonnes and South Korea at about 1.1 million tonnes complete the top three, together about 39 percent of China's 8.8 million tonne import year. A three-way split at cheap CIF is a surplus market. 2024 would put UAE first at 1.70 million tonnes and Canada second at 1.66 million. April 2023 is the competitive Gulf-Canada book before that rank swap.
Alberta recovered sulfur still leaves mainly through Vancouver. A freight-and-FOB race into China is the Pacific door's daily work. Red Sea risk into late 2023 would later lengthen some Gulf voyages. April is still a normal canal-and-Hormuz map. 2026 commercial sulfur near-zero through Hormuz is the later rewrite of this note.
Tampa $90 opening toward $55 in July, USGS, is the Atlantic rhyme of this cheap Chinese CIF year. Licensed weekly grids are not restated. This desk note restates IndexBox origin ranks. It does not invent a weekly UAE-versus-Vancouver spread.
Figures follow IndexBox. Gulf solids staying competitive at soft prices is the 2023 China-origin file, not a 2022 spike reprint.