Customs-linked reporting put December 2024 China sulfur imports at 760,000 tonnes, up 21.8 percent year on year and 12.2 percent month on month, with average import price $160.6 per tonne, up 45.6 percent year on year. That is an early signal of firming into the 2025 price recovery after a soft full-year average near $116 per tonne.
Seven hundred sixty thousand tonnes is below 2025's July peak of 1.094 million tonnes and above 2025's December 422,400 tonnes. December 2024 is the last comfortable Chinese import month before 2025's expensive year and 2026's collapse. The $160.6 average is the first $150-plus monthly CIF idea after a cheap year.
Tampa fourth-quarter 2024 at $116 per long ton, USGS MCS 2025, is the Florida firming that rhymes with this $160.6 CIF. Vancouver FOB climbing toward CRU's about $275 fourth-quarter narrative is the Pacific solid. Three prints, one late-2024 turn: still a surplus year in the CRU inventory essay, already a firmer winter.
Alberta recovered sulfur still leaves mainly through Vancouver. Canada's 1.66 million tonne 2024 share of Chinese imports includes whatever of this December 760,000 tonne month Canadian cargoes filled. UAE at 1.70 million tonnes for the year remained first origin. Gulf tonnes still competed. They would not, in the same way, after 28 February 2026.
Alberta remelt remained the price-elastic supply in CRU's November contrast with Kazakh and Saudi draws that ran for storage and regulatory reasons even in the surplus. A $160.6 Chinese monthly average is closer to clearing the $150-plus Canadian export chain than the $116 full-year average was. Heartland's 2025 remelt expansion is the later capacity response. December 2024 is the price permission starting.
IFA's MAP and DAP 2024 production up 4 percent to 66.8 million tonnes, still below 2020, is the phosphate bid under this monthly import. Indonesian HPAL acid demand at about 5.17 million tonnes in 2024, Argus, is the metals bid. December firming is both books restocking into winter.
World output near 83.9 million tonnes in MCS 2026's 2024 revision did not tighten. Tradeable winter cargoes did. Licensed weekly grids are not restated.
Figures follow China sulfuric acid network and customs-linked reporting.