The Fertilizer Institute's January 2024-posted USDA RFI comments reiterate sulfur's role as a critical ammoniated-phosphate input and the 198 percent March 2021-March 2022 price spike as evidence of global supply-chain exposure for US fertilizer costs. The PDF is at https://www.tfi.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/the_fertilizer_institute_comments_final_usda_rfi.pdf.
One hundred ninety-eight percent in twelve months is the 2021-22 Tampa path from the $69-ish neighbourhood toward the $481 April 2022 peak, USGS MCS 2023. TFI is reminding USDA that phosphate costs are sulfur costs. January 2024 Tampa at $69, USGS MCS 2025, is back at the starting neighbourhood. The comment is memory, not a 2024 spike.
Alberta recovered sulfur still leaves mainly through Vancouver as solid and through molten rail as the 900,000 tonne 2024 US book. TFI members buying that molten watch Tampa. A 198 percent spike memory is why 2026's $705 contract and four Mosaic units curtailed would later produce bottleneck language from the same association.
Canada at 53 percent of US elemental imports in the later MCS 2026 2021-24 table is the supply-chain exposure TFI is pointing at, even if the 2024 PDF does not name HS 2503. Iraq 6 percent and Kazakhstan 6 percent are the later-impaired slices. January 2024 still has those slices on the water.
IFA's 66.8 million tonne 2024 MAP and DAP estimate, still below 2020, is the volume book under TFI's input argument. Sulfur intensity did not need a new 2022 to matter. It needed acid plants to run.
The USDA RFI is a policy docket. The desk will not invent quotes beyond the 198 percent spike and the critical-input role TFI stated.
Licensed weekly grids are not restated. 198 percent is TFI's figure for March 2021-March 2022.
Figures follow TFI's posted comments.