Damage to Gazprom's Astrakhan gas-processing complex prompted a Russian industrial sulfur export ban from late 2025, later extended. Trade press estimated Kazakhstan had been moving about 0.3 million tonnes a month of sulfur through Russian ports before subsequent transit curbs, with Morocco and Brazil as key 2026 destinations. The ban removed a secondary supply path that phosphate buyers had used when Gulf cargoes tightened.
BC Insight and CRU's later July 2026 update is the public recap. Decree No. 785 on 25 June 2026 would extend the ban covering liquid, granular, and lump sulfur to 31 December 2026. The November 2025 origin of the ban is Astrakhan damage, not a 2026 Hormuz headline. Recovered sulfur that cannot leave a damaged complex, and a ban that keeps remaining Russian tonnes at home, are two different losses.
Three hundred thousand tonnes a month of Kazakh sulfur through Russian Baltic and Black Sea gateways is about 3.6 million tonnes a year if sustained, in the neighbourhood of Canada's entire Vancouver stem. Roszheldor would halt that rail on 26 May 2026. Kazakhstan would suspend exports from 27 June. November 2025 is the first CIS door closing. May and June 2026 shut the rest.
Morocco and Brazil as key destinations are the OCP and Mosaic-Brazil books. OCP's later second-quarter 2026 cuts of up to 50 percent on sulfur shortage, and Mosaic curtailments at US and Brazil locations, sit on this missing CIS path plus the later Hormuz hole. A November ban does not wait for February's Strait closure to matter.
Alberta recovered sulfur still leaves mainly through the Vancouver stem. A Russian ban is a bid that can show up as Vancouver and US Gulf fixtures. VFPA's 2025 Brazil-related fertilizer destinations and Argus's January-August 122,842 tonnes of Vancouver sulfur to Brazil, nearly threefold year on year, are the Pacific answer already in motion before Astrakhan.
USGS MCS 2026 did not list Russia among the top US elemental import sources for 2021-24. Canada, Mexico, Iraq, and Kazakhstan were the named shares. A Russian ban matters to the US through global seaborne tightness and Tampa, not through a large direct US import share. Tampa in early October 2025 was $310 per long ton in USGS notes, the highest fourth quarter since the second quarter of 2022.
TFI's later language, that Hormuz plus Russia took two of the three largest traded sources offline together, treats this November ban as the Russia half. The 2025 file is Astrakhan and the ban's start. The 2026 file is the extension, the Kazakh rail halt, and the Strait.
Officials later framed the extension as domestic fertilizer and food security. The November origin is damage at a gas-processing complex. Both can be true. Recovered sulfur tracks gas processing. A damaged complex is a production event. A ban is a trade event. Phosphate buyers felt the trade event first.
Figures follow BC Insight and CRU as cited. Licensed weekly grids are not restated.