USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 estimates average US elemental sulfur unit value at about $180 per tonne in 2025, up from $46.42 per tonne in 2024. The PDF is at https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2026/mcs2026-sulfur.pdf. That nearly fourfold jump is a government unit-value, not a licensed weekly grid, and it is the 2025 price year in a single number.
Tampa, Florida contract sulfur began 2025 at $116 per long ton, rose to $270 in early April, eased to $252 in early July, then reached $310 in early October. Fourth-quarter 2025 prices were the highest since the second quarter of 2022. The unit-value at $180 sits between those Tampa prints because it is an annual average across US elemental sulfur, not the Florida contract alone.
All-forms US production slipped to 8.1 million tonnes in 2025 from 8.32 million in 2024. Elemental recovered sulfur was about 7.6 million tonnes. Apparent consumption fell to 9.1 million tonnes. Net import reliance was 14 percent. Canada supplied 53 percent of US recovered elemental sulfur imports in 2021-24. A higher unit-value on slightly lower production is a tightness print, not a boom in Claus output.
CRU estimated a global deficit near 1.9 million tonnes in 2025. Vancouver FOB averaged $238 per tonne in January-July, triple 2024's $78, and printed $305-310 in early October. Middle East spot finished the year near $505-525 FOB with China CFR into the low $520s in BC Insight and CRU open articles. The US $180 unit-value is the inland American translation of that global reprice.
Russian industrial sulfur export restrictions began in late 2025 after damage at Gazprom's Astrakhan complex, and were later extended through 2026. That is the USGS note's 'global tightness into year-end as Russian export restrictions began.' It is not yet the Hormuz closure of 28 February 2026. 2025 is the deficit year. 2026 is the corridor-failure year.
Alberta recovered sulfur still leaves mainly through the Vancouver stem. A US unit-value at $180 raises the value of Canadian molten that rails south and of formed tonnes that can divert to the US, as VFPA's 2025 US destination line of 302,000 tonnes, up 191 percent, showed. It also raises the remelt bid on Alberta block. Argus, citing AER, put provincial stock at 11.66 million tonnes in July, the lowest since May 2019.
Phosphate affordability is the demand-side question inside a $180 unit-value year. USGS apparent consumption at 9.1 million tonnes, down from 10.2 million in 2023, says US users already burned less. Tampa at $310 in October is the contract that would test Florida runs into 2026. Mosaic curtailments in 2026 sit on this 2025 price path, not only on Hormuz.
World production in MCS 2026 was 84 million tonnes versus 83.9 million in 2024. The unit-value jump is not a world output collapse. It is a tighter tradeable surplus, metals demand including Indonesian sulfur burners, and the start of CIS export restrictions. Canada at 5.0 million tonnes 2025e is the Pacific producer that VFPA showed loading 3.51 million tonnes of sulphur through Vancouver.
Figures follow USGS MCS 2026. Licensed weekly assessment grids are not restated.