[By our guest columnist - 'Thiophilos']
Through most of a long career of having something to do with sulphur as well as sulfur, soufre, schwefel, azufre, cera, and dozens more it has never ceased to amaze this commentator how poorly understood the role of elemental sulphur is in the life we humans enjoy for a few score years. At this festive time of the year 2010 it might not be inappropriate for all of us “in the business” to pause and give thanks for element number 16 and ponder a little on where we might be without it. With some careful thought and due consideration we might even decide to make a New Year resolution that we should try and make 2011 the year in which we worked harder to propagate a better and more positive image for the yellow element.
By far the majority of the humans on this planet Earth harbour a vision of sulphur as an evil, smelly (which it is not), dangerous, and totally environmentally unfriendly component of the nether regions of the planet, where it should ideally be sequestered along with all the nasty GHG’s that are so much front and centre in our current confabulations about climate. A miniscule minority of humanity have some limited understanding of the absolutely key role that elemental sulphur, as a precursor in fertilizer manufacture, plays in feeding six and a half billion of their fellow kind worldwide. Its marketing in that essential part of world commerce is played as very much the “second fiddle” to its agricultural orchestral partners of phosphate, nitrogen, and potash. Much of the first of these members of the “major fertilizer family” would not even be available to the plants that we grow to feed the masses if it were not for the millions of tons of yellow sulphur that are used annually to liberate it from the insoluble rock into which Mother Nature sequestered it as she built the place we live on. Those of us “in the know” talk among ourselves about the key link between sulphur and the food we eat but we do a lousy job in linking that talk to the critical importance of yellow, awful, “smelly” sulphur in the overall process.
Why? Are we afraid that a couple of billion people might stop eating if they knew that sulphur had played a role in producing their bread, their rice, their vegetables, their sugar cane, their fruit, the feed their meat animals eat? It might just possibly be a rough and ready remedy for the current obesity crisis some parts of the world seem to be going through, but hardly a socially acceptable one. Not only has elemental sulphur become a very essential raw material of modern agriculture, it is now one of the largest raw material components of the chemical fertilizer industry. How many of you ‘in the business’ make any effort to communicate and educate homo (not so) sapiens of this fact? Would you even think of a word of appreciation of this kind on your Christmas cards? You might get locked away with the crazy people if you tried!
But public ignorance of the role of sulphur in agriculture is not alone on the docket of devilry the demos (as in democracy) have decided to adopt. How many know that most of the metals used in everything from the structures they live and travel in to the electronic magic their digital devices deliver, would still be sequestered in the rocks of Mother Earth if it were not for the sulphuric acid made from sulphur that was used to leach them out of the ores and refine them into their presently usable form?
There are also many other industrial uses of sulphur, both as such and in its sulphuric acid form, which are “hidden” from public view but essential in sustaining the modern life we all live. But poor old sulphur gets little credit and even less recognition. Is it our inherited aversion to the stuff that gets in the way or is it our unwillingness to communicate to the society we serve just how valuable sulphur is in making our life as comfortable as it is ? And whether you agree or not at this greetings time of the year - it is.
And that is not the whole story. Good old sulphur is at the heart of brand new semiconductor materials that are being used in solar energy collectors and a variety of next generation electronic marvels with micromaterial properties that will add a new environmentally friendly dimension to the near magical uses of the yellow element. Yes, Mother Nature carefully planned some very special uses for element number 16 and it is about time that all of us in the business brushed up on our real knowledge of sulphur and started passing on the good news to the masses. A Merry Christmas and a Great Sulphurous New Year.
‘Thiophilos’
Monday 15 November 2010
When is a glut not a glut?
Listening to presentations at this year’s Sulphur conference, it became increasingly clear to me that there is a great deal of uncertainty over sulphur availability over the medium to long term.
On the one hand, there is the familiar story of the continuing threat to the market from large new sulphur-generating projects, particularly in the Middle East. In Abu Dhabi, the Shah sour gas project has been delayed by the withdrawal of ConocoPhillips from the consortium in April, and the timescale has now been pushed back to 2014, but there will nevertheless be 10,000 t/d of sulphur being produced and marketed once it is up and running. In Qatar the Common Sulphur Project is now complete and as new LNG trains and the massive Pearl GTL plant ramp up production, so more gas is processed and more sulphur removed for sale, ultimately planned to reach a figure of 12,000 t/d.
In China development of the Sichuan sour gas fields is proceeding apace, with several million tonnes per year of sulphur to be recovered by the end of the decade, while in the Caspian Sea, huge projects such as Tengiz and Kashagan also have the potential for large sulphur surpluses, and further inland Turkmenistan and Russia are also developing their sour gas reserves. But there are caveats to many of these projects; at the moment all of the sour gas from Tengiz is planned to be re-injected to drive oil production, and there will be no extra sulphur, and Kashagan’s sulphur production has been capped at 3,800 t/a. Delays to major projects occasioned by the financial crisis have pushed back some of these large projects, in the case of Shah, as noted above, by a couple of years at least. At the moment predictions still indicate a significant sulphur surplus over the coming decade, but this has dropped from several million tonnes per year to less than two, and there are also trends in both supply and demand that could cut this still further.
As several speakers noted, for example, the amount of sulphur recovered from natural gas in North America is declining. The boom in low-sulphur shale gas production, which threatens to turn the United States into a gas exporter, has raised output from that source at the same time that production from Canadian sour gas fields continues to decline rapidly. Sulphur extraction from oil sands is being delayed, in Canada by logistical and environmental questions, and in Venezuela by financing and political uncertainty. And all the time, new demand from burgeoning phosphate markets, supported by continuing high phosphate prices, have conspired to keep markets tight. The new Ma’aden project in Saudi Arabia, will now be on-stream by the end of this year, consuming large volumes of sulphur. Some much-delayed nickel leaching projects are also starting up, at Goro in New Caledonia and Ambatovy in Madagascar, again with major sulphur demand for acid production.
There have been dire predictions of a massive glut of sulphur for several years, and yet so far it has not seemed to materialise. Events have conspired to keep sulphur markets tight – perhaps not as tight as the astonishing days of 2008, and yet still tight enough that, as a consequence, f.o.b. sulphur prices are in the vicinity of $200/t and show no signs of falling at present.
Looking to the longer term, as Professor Peter Clark of ASRL has pointed out, continuing substitution of fossil energy by biofuels, renewable energy sources and nuclear, and especially more efficient use of fossil fuels, all actually point to lower sulphur availability in coming decades. Global stockpiles of 20 million tonnes actually only represent a few months’ worth of demand, even if they could all be melted down and sold on. A few years ago it was assumed that sour crude and natural gas processing had sounded the death knell of Frash mining, but sustained prices in their current range could see some of those sulphur mines return to production.
On the one hand, there is the familiar story of the continuing threat to the market from large new sulphur-generating projects, particularly in the Middle East. In Abu Dhabi, the Shah sour gas project has been delayed by the withdrawal of ConocoPhillips from the consortium in April, and the timescale has now been pushed back to 2014, but there will nevertheless be 10,000 t/d of sulphur being produced and marketed once it is up and running. In Qatar the Common Sulphur Project is now complete and as new LNG trains and the massive Pearl GTL plant ramp up production, so more gas is processed and more sulphur removed for sale, ultimately planned to reach a figure of 12,000 t/d.
In China development of the Sichuan sour gas fields is proceeding apace, with several million tonnes per year of sulphur to be recovered by the end of the decade, while in the Caspian Sea, huge projects such as Tengiz and Kashagan also have the potential for large sulphur surpluses, and further inland Turkmenistan and Russia are also developing their sour gas reserves. But there are caveats to many of these projects; at the moment all of the sour gas from Tengiz is planned to be re-injected to drive oil production, and there will be no extra sulphur, and Kashagan’s sulphur production has been capped at 3,800 t/a. Delays to major projects occasioned by the financial crisis have pushed back some of these large projects, in the case of Shah, as noted above, by a couple of years at least. At the moment predictions still indicate a significant sulphur surplus over the coming decade, but this has dropped from several million tonnes per year to less than two, and there are also trends in both supply and demand that could cut this still further.
As several speakers noted, for example, the amount of sulphur recovered from natural gas in North America is declining. The boom in low-sulphur shale gas production, which threatens to turn the United States into a gas exporter, has raised output from that source at the same time that production from Canadian sour gas fields continues to decline rapidly. Sulphur extraction from oil sands is being delayed, in Canada by logistical and environmental questions, and in Venezuela by financing and political uncertainty. And all the time, new demand from burgeoning phosphate markets, supported by continuing high phosphate prices, have conspired to keep markets tight. The new Ma’aden project in Saudi Arabia, will now be on-stream by the end of this year, consuming large volumes of sulphur. Some much-delayed nickel leaching projects are also starting up, at Goro in New Caledonia and Ambatovy in Madagascar, again with major sulphur demand for acid production.
There have been dire predictions of a massive glut of sulphur for several years, and yet so far it has not seemed to materialise. Events have conspired to keep sulphur markets tight – perhaps not as tight as the astonishing days of 2008, and yet still tight enough that, as a consequence, f.o.b. sulphur prices are in the vicinity of $200/t and show no signs of falling at present.
Looking to the longer term, as Professor Peter Clark of ASRL has pointed out, continuing substitution of fossil energy by biofuels, renewable energy sources and nuclear, and especially more efficient use of fossil fuels, all actually point to lower sulphur availability in coming decades. Global stockpiles of 20 million tonnes actually only represent a few months’ worth of demand, even if they could all be melted down and sold on. A few years ago it was assumed that sour crude and natural gas processing had sounded the death knell of Frash mining, but sustained prices in their current range could see some of those sulphur mines return to production.
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