Tampa Q4 at $116/lt sets up the 2025 rally

Fourth-quarter 2024 Tampa molten at $116 per long ton, USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025, marked a clear lift from the $69 per long ton start of year without returning to 2022 spike territory. The year opened at $69, rose to $81 in early March, eased to $76 in early July, then jumped to $116 in the fourth quarter. Vancouver finished 2024 at 3,348,398 tonnes of sulphur in the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority 2023-2025 Statistics Overview, up 7.9 percent from 3,103,912 tonnes in 2023. Argus separately cited 3.3 million tonnes of solid exports, plus about 900,000 tonnes of Canadian liquid rail into the United States. The combination of firmer contracts and growing Pacific throughput set conditions for inventory economics to flip toward remelt in 2025 if FOB stayed elevated.

The five-year volume path from 2.29 million tonnes in 2021 to 2.79 million in 2022, 3.10 million in 2023, 3.35 million in 2024, and 3.51 million in 2025 is the clearest public series on Canadian Pacific solid sulfur. Fourth-quarter 2024 is the fourth step. Volume grew through a year whose average US elemental sulfur unit value was $46.42 per tonne in MCS 2026, after $58.9 in 2023 and $177.8 in 2022. That unit-value is the year's mean. The $116 Tampa close is the setup for 2025, not 2024's average. Two different prices, one volume year. Argus later put January-July 2024 Vancouver FOB at $78 per tonne, before climbing toward CRU's about $275 fourth-quarter FOB narrative. A 3.35 million tonne year at those FOB ideas is a logistics year, not a remelt-boom year. 2025's $238 January-July average is when remelt economics flipped.

China December 2024 sulfur imports of 760,000 tonnes at $160.6 per tonne average, up 45.6 percent year on year, were the early firming signal into 2025 after a soft full-year average near $116 per tonne. Full-year 2024 Chinese imports printed 9.952 million tonnes, up 12.7 percent, average about $116.3 per tonne, down 8.4 percent, Mysteel and 中国硫酸网. Canada was second origin at 1.66 million tonnes, behind the UAE at 1.70 million. 1.66 million tonnes into China is about half of VFPA's 3.35 million tonne 2024 sulphur year. The other half went to Australia, the United States, Indonesia, and others. A stem that is half China is a stem that 2025-26 destination diversification would have to rewrite. 2025 would reverse the Chinese volume-and-price mix: 9.61 million tonnes, down 3.5 percent, at $274 average, up 134 percent.

Alberta recovered sulfur still leaves mainly through the Vancouver stem. USGS MCS 2026 revises 2024 Canada sulfur production to about 5.06 million tonnes and world output near 83.9 million tonnes. Canada's 5.06 million tonne recovered book is output. Vancouver's 3.35 million is the Pacific solid slice. The 900,000 tonne molten-rail slice is the US phosphate and industrial book that USGS later counted inside Canada's 53 percent of US elemental imports for 2021-24. The rest is domestic use and pour to block. CRU's later inventory essay said Canada remelt accelerates when Vancouver FOB clears high logistics costs, while Kazakh and Saudi stock draws continued through the lower-price surplus for regulatory and storage-capacity reasons. Fourth-quarter FOB climbing toward CRU's $275 idea is closer to clearing the $150-plus Canadian export chain than the $78 first-half average was. Heartland's 2025 remelt expansion to 700 tonnes a day is the later capacity response. December 2024 is the price permission starting.

Kazakhstan's 2024 extra sales of about 1.2 million tonnes from stock, Morocco taking about 73 percent, and Kashagan inventory draw seen finishing by mid-2025 at about 0.25 million tonnes a quarter, are the CIS tonnes that still moved through Russian ports. Tengiz Wellhead Management lifted 2024 sulfur toward 2.65 million tonnes. CRU expected Kazakh exports to normalize near 3.5 million tonnes a year from 2026, before transit bans intervened. Saudi stock location near capacity kept adding about 0.15 million tonnes a quarter to the export programme. Fourth-quarter 2024 is the last comfortable year in which those non-price draws and Canadian logistics growth could coexist with a $116 Tampa without a Strait closure. Russia's late-2025 industrial sulfur export ban and Kazakhstan's 2026 suspension are ahead. Hormuz is 28 February 2026.

Indonesian HPAL acid demand at about 5.17 million tonnes in 2024, Argus, with 7.12 million seen for 2025, is the metals bid under this winter. IFA's MAP and DAP 2024 production up 4 percent to 66.8 million tonnes, still below 2020, is the phosphate bid. TFI USDA fertilizer comments had already framed sulfur as a key phosphate input through the 2021-22 cost shock. Fourth-quarter 2024 is both books restocking into winter at CIF and Tampa prints that had left the $69-$76 band. US 2024 production at 8.32 million tonnes, down from 8.65 million, and shipments 5 percent lower in MCS 2025, left a slightly tighter Atlantic balance for that restock to meet.

Red Sea attacks had cut Suez transits about 14 percent earlier in 2024, with Cape reroutes lifting ton-miles. Hellenic Shipping News and industry freight notes into late 2023 and early 2024 described longer voyages raising delivered costs for Middle East sulfur and fertilizer cargoes into Asia and Europe. Canadian Pacific stems do not use Suez. They use forming plants, unit trains, and Vancouver loaders. A fourth-quarter Tampa at $116 and a Chinese December CIF at $160.6 are the Atlantic and Pacific prints of a market that had stopped being unambiguously soft. They are not 2022's $481 Tampa. They are the setup.

Alberta recovered sulfur still leaves mainly through the Vancouver stem. World tightness, when it comes, shows up there as stem tightness, remelt draws, and a Gulf-versus-Pacific basis. Closing 2024 at 3.35 million tonnes sulphur and $116 Tampa completes a volume year that began at $69. China's import dependence and Middle East share of seaborne trade remained the structural risk factors that would dominate 2026 headlines. UNCERTAIN: Alberta end-2024 stock path between the derived about 12 million tonne mid-year level and the July 2025 11.66 million tonne print. Directionally the market was pivoting from soft surplus psychology toward a tighter, remelt-friendly regime. Licensed weekly assessment grids are not restated here. The 11.66 million tonne July 2025 AER-via-Argus print is the first public confirmation that the destock had started. Fourth-quarter 2024 is when FOB began to pay for it.

Key points

• USGS: Tampa Q4 2024 $116/lt vs $69/lt at start of 2024.
• Vancouver 2024 sulphur 3.35 Mt (+8% YoY).
• Five-year volume path 2021-24: 2.29 → 2.79 → ~3.10 → 3.35 Mt.
• Setup for 2025 remelt draws if FOB covers >$150/t export-chain costs.
• UNCERTAIN: winter 2024-25 Alberta pour vs remelt net balance.

30-day watchlist

• January 2025 Tampa open versus the $116/lt Q4 close.
• Chinese January import tonnes versus December's 760 kt.
• Any AER or Argus inventory comment bridging the derived ~12 Mt mid-2024 level.
• Vancouver January loadings versus the 3.35 Mt 2024 base.

Sources

• USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025 - Sulfur
• Port of Vancouver moves record trade in 2024
• Port of Vancouver 2025 Statistics Overview
• 2024 China sulfur imports grow 13% despite higher production (Mysteel)

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Public reference summary. Weekly PRA assessments require a commercial license. Not investment advice.