Canadian suppliers delivered 122,842 tonnes of sulfur to Brazil from Vancouver in January-August 2025, nearly threefold the prior-year pace. Argus reporting linked Brazilian preference for Canadian and Middle East origins to reciprocal-tariff risk on US goods. The item is at https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news-and-insights/latest-market-news/2738944-vancouver-sulfur-exports-down-on-year-in-aug.
The shift illustrates how West Coast Canadian solid sulfur competes into Atlantic Basin phosphate markets when US Gulf economics or policy change. Formed sulfur on a Vancouver stem can reach Santos. Molten Canadian sulfur railed into the US cannot, without a Gulf forming step. Tariff talk that makes US-origin goods risky in Brazil is a solid-export opportunity for Alberta forming plants.
Argus had already put January-July Vancouver solid exports at 2.04 million tonnes, up nearly 5 percent, with Brazil at 122,842 tonnes in the longer January-August cut, Cuba at 122,467 tonnes in the July cut, up 96,041 tonnes, and Australia at 356,234 tonnes, up 5 percent. Indonesia slipped 23 percent in that July window. Destination diversification is the 2025 corridor story.
Early 2025 Argus commentary on threats of 25 percent tariffs on US-bound goods from early April had encouraged Canadian suppliers to look for alternative markets accessible via Vancouver for some product historically railed as liquid into the US, though logistics contracts meant any diversion would be gradual. The Brazil triple is that diversion showing up in tonnes, not only in talk.
Alberta recovered sulfur still leaves mainly through the Vancouver stem. A Brazil bid that triples is a bid that pays the remelt, rail, forming, and terminal chain often cited above $150 per tonne. January-July FOB averaging $238 per tonne, versus $78 a year earlier, is the other half of why those tonnes moved.
Middle East origins remaining in Brazil's preference set, alongside Canada, is the 2025 world. Hormuz had not closed. Gulf seaborne still competed. The 2026 unusual US Gulf cargoes to North Africa and East Africa are a later, larger diversion. This October item is the Canadian-to-Brazil preview.
VFPA's full-year 2025 US destination line of 302,000 tonnes, up 191 percent, shows the other policy geography: Pacific solids into the United States even as some Canadian molten was being considered for diversion away from the US. Two US stories, molten rail risk and solid Pacific receipts, can run at once.
Tampa in early October was $310 per long ton in USGS notes. US Gulf molten at that contract and Vancouver solids into Brazil at a tripled pace are the two-hub read. Licensed weekly grids are not restated.
Figures follow Argus open news on Port of Vancouver data.