Vancouver export decade

Port of Vancouver is the public measuring stick for Canadian solid sulfur exports. the port authority publishes annual sulphur tonnage that can be cited from public tables. The 2020s volume path is steep. Port statistics show sulphur at 2.65 Mt in 2020, 2.29 Mt in 2021, and 2.79 Mt in 2022 (+22% year on year). Authority commentary for 2023 placed sulphur among dry-bulk growth commodities with an 11% increase, about 3.10 Mt in trade summaries. 2024 reached 3.3 Mt (+8%). 2025 reached 3.5 Mt (+5%) inside a record overall cargo year of 170.4 MMT. From the 2021 trough to 2025, Vancouver sulphur rose by roughly 1.2 Mt, or more than 50%. That growth is a logistics story as much as a price story. Western Canada recovers sulfur at oil sands upgraders and sour-gas plants. Molten product moves by rail to forming plants in Alberta and British Columbia, or remelt terminals crush and melt block sulfur when FOB netbacks pay. Formed granular or prill loads to Port Moody and other Vancouver-area terminals for Supramax and larger dry-bulk stems into China, Indonesia, Australia, Brazil, and other destinations. Argus reported January-July 2025 solid exports of 2.04 Mt (+~5% YoY), with Brazil receipts nearly triple year on year, Australia at 356 kt (+5%), and Indonesia softer in that window. Price and volume diverged in important years. 2022 combined a mid-year FOB peak near $480/t with a collapse under $65/t, yet calendar loadings still rose 22%. 2023-24 delivered soft-to-moderate prices with further volume gains. 2025 paired elevated FOB (Argus Jan-Jul average $238/t versus $78/t a year earlier) with another record. annual tonnes follow rail programs, forming capacity, and term offtake, alongside rail programs, forming capacity, and term offtake. Capacity additions inland supported the decade. South Cheecham forming came online in Q3 2023 near Fort McMurray. Heartland and other remelt expansions in 2025-26 public commentary aimed to convert Alberta inventory into vessel-ready tonnes faster. Export-chain costs often cited above $150/t mean Vancouver is idle when FOB is soft and a release valve for provincial stocks when FOB is firm. In 2026, Vancouver’s role shifted from growth lane to crisis alternative. Open analysis after Hormuz disruption framed Canadian Pacific loadings as unconstrained by the Strait, with Q1 2026 Canadian exports cited near 1.24 Mt and FOB Vancouver sharply higher. Rail saturation and forming limits still capped how many incremental tonnes could answer Asia’s bid. Vancouver can reprice and redirect; it cannot print Middle East-scale seaborne volumes overnight. For Sulfur Wire topic pages, the durable public series is the port sulphur total, destination notes when Argus or VFPA disclose them, and the inland forming map. Licensed weekly FOB Vancouver assessments remain outside redistributed content.

UNCERTAIN: full 2026 calendar sulphur tonnes until VFPA publishes the next statistics overview. Operationally, the decade’s growth required coordinated midstream investment. Forming capacity near oil sands and Heartland, remelt for block reclaim, rail programs on CN and CPKC, and terminal loadout at Port Moody and related Vancouver facilities had to clear tonnes in sequence. A bottleneck at any stage shows up as either pour-to-block inland or vessels waiting on incomplete stems. South Cheecham’s 2023 start and Heartland’s later remelt expansions are public markers of that investment cycle. They do not appear as line items in the port sulphur total, but they are why the total could rise. Commercially, Vancouver FOB solids serve a different contract set than Tampa molten or US Gulf captive liquid. Asian fertilizer and chemical buyers, Indonesian HPAL projects, Australian consumers, and, increasingly in 2025, Brazilian importers bid CFR against Middle East and other origins after freight. When Middle East freight and availability broke in 2026, those bids shifted toward Pacific Canadian offers until rail saturation intervened. The decade lesson is that Vancouver became too large to ignore in soft years and too capacity-constrained to fully replace the Gulf in a crisis year. Open port tonnes remain the right public KPI; licensed FOB assessments remain the right private mark.

Vancouver export decade

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