CRU's late-2024 inventory review described the market since late 2022 as a global surplus with lower prices, even while Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia voluntarily drew stocks. Canada's remelt remained the clearest price-elastic supply response heading into 2025 tightness. The November essay that frames this mid-year item is at https://www.bcinsight.crugroup.com/2024/11/30/sulphur-inventory-availability-and-pricing/.
A surplus that survives forced draws is a deep surplus. Kashagan about 0.25 million tonnes a quarter plus Saudi about 0.15 million tonnes a quarter is extra seaborne sulfur FOB did not have to summon. Tampa $81 in March and $76 in July, USGS, and Vancouver FOB $78 January-July are the prices of that depth.
Alberta recovered sulfur still leaves mainly through Vancouver. Price-elastic remelt waits. Forming-led de-blocking, Cheecham after May, still moved some pad because capacity existed. It did not empty the derived 12 million tonne provincial neighbourhood. 2025's $238 FOB would.
World output near 85 million tonnes in MCS 2025's 2024 estimate, later revised to 83.9 million in MCS 2026, is a flat Claus planet. US 8.2 million tonnes estimated, Canada 5.0 million then 5.06 million revised. Surplus is tradeable tonnes, Kazakh pad, Saudi storage, Chinese port stocks, not an extra 10 million tonnes of nameplate.
Indonesian HPAL switching toward sulfur burning, 1.92 million tonnes imported in seven months, is the demand that would later eat the surplus. IFA MAP and DAP 66.8 million tonnes, still below 2020, is the phosphate bid that was not large enough to eat it in mid-2024.
Middle East refining upgrades flagged to lift supply from 2025, USGS MCS 2025, are the next supply wave. HPAL is the next demand wave. Mid-2024 is the last unambiguously surplus mid-year before those waves and before 2025's 1.9 million tonne deficit call.
The 2022 crash to Tampa $90 in Q4 is the surplus's origin. China phosphate export curbs and demand destruction in 2022, then 2023's $55 July Tampa, then 2024's still-soft first half, are the sequence. Licensed weekly grids are not restated.
Figures follow CRU. Canada's remelt as the elastic response is CRU's contrast, not a desk invention.