Sulphurous Times with Meena Chauhan

[Music] Welcome to the HC Comortis Podcast, a podcast dedicated to the Comortis sector and the people within it. I'm your host Paul Chapman. This podcast is produced by HC Group, a global search firm dedicated to the Comortis sector. Today we are talking sulfur, among other things a key component in fertiliser production, the market was already in a structural supply deficit prior to entering this year, and the closure of the straight-up or mousse has effectively shut in roughly half of the globally traded sulfur. What has that done for price? What does that mean for food? What does that mean for global trade? And what does that mean for the sulfur industry? Our guest is Mina Chauhan, senior manager over sulfur and sulfuric acid research at the consulting arm of August media. As always you can really support the show by leaving a positive review on the platform you're listening on and I hope you enjoyed the episode. Mina, welcome to the show. Thank you Paul, good to be here. Yeah, thanks for doing it here by popular demand is sulfur and sulfuric acid at a long time coming and it couldn't be more topical than right now. So we're talking sulfur, we're talking basics of the market, then walking through demand supply and how the trade flows have been impacted obviously by the recent events in the Gulf which are currently ongoing. Can we get all on the same page, especially me at the very start and can you just tell us where is sulfur produced, how is it used, some basics of trade and volumes and so forth. But let's start with the basics, where is it produced and why? Absolutely, sure thing. So on the production side, the largest region is the Middle East and that's followed by the Northeast Asia and North America in terms of how it's produced and how this chemical comes to be. It's through a byproduct process. So it operates quite differently to other commodities that are produced on purpose for that reason and it's a byproduct of the oil refining sector and the gas processing sector as well. And probably worth noting that it's sour, when we talk about gas, it's sour gas and when we talk about refining its sulfur content within the feedstock that's important. So for example, a refinery that only utilizes sweet or light crude wouldn't have necessarily sulfur content. And I'm guessing this is consequential because currently lots of oil is being processed that's light and sweet in the US for example and not heavy and sour. Right, okay, good stuff. Sorry, carry on. Yeah, no indeed. So that's the sort of two key ways it's produced. There are other ways it can be produced. For example, over in Western Canada from oil sands and that is a much smaller portion of overall production. And if we think about last year and use that as a base, we global sulfur production was around 72 million tons outside of those reasons. So the Middle East, Northeast Asia and North America next would then be Russia and Central Asia. So Kazakhstan and so on. And the other thing to mention as well probably is on the voluntary side of production. So historically, if we were to go back many, many decades, the way that sulfur was produced was from mining. This is of course no longer the case because of the rise of fossil fuels and so on in the last few decades. This is pretty much all died out except for in one location. And that is in Poland. There is one active sulfur mine there today where sulfur is produced directly from a process there. However, that is not prevalent anymore. Yeah, there's a quite a sad and apologies to any residents who definitely aren't listening to this podcast but town sort of 50 miles east of Houston called sulfur which, you know, back at the turn of the last century was a thriving little town for producing sulfur. So yeah, no longer. Indeed, indeed. Yes. So that's voluntary. That's obviously producing it not as a byproduct. Is it also a byproduct in some metals processing as well and can you give us some, you know, is it sort of 95% just is essentially tied to oil and gas processing? Yeah. So in terms of the metal side, it wouldn't be sulfur that is recovered, that would be sulfuric acid. So it's completely different chemical and commodity essentially even though there's of course the link and really you use sulfur to then make sulfuric acid in some processes. And then if you were talking about metal smelters, for example, copper smelter or zinc smelter, the product out of that as a byproduct would be sulfuric acid. So it's two slightly different markets there. Right. Okay. Okay. So then what it's that's how it's produced 72 million tons of the stuff a year. It challenges that it's primarily a byproduct but what is it used in and what are the key uses for it and what form is it used in those uses? Sure. So the majority of sulfur is used to make sulfuric acid. So it's roughly 90% of that. There's only about 10 or 11% that is used in what we call elemental form. So as a sulfur as it is otherwise once it's produced as sulfuric acid, the key end use is really around the fertilizer space. So the number one end use for sulfur is phosphoric acid which is used to make phosphate fertilizers and then there's another range of fertilizers such as ammonium sulfate and so on. And then outside of the fertilizer sector it's the metal's leaching sectors. So we have nickel which I know we'll touch on a little bit later. Nickel represents about 8% of total sulfur demand last year and much smaller end use in terms of elemental sulfur is copper. Obviously when we talk about sulfuric acid copper is a much larger portion of that and that's because the byproduct sulfuric acid from smelters is largely used within that space. So it's slightly different in terms of the metal side. So we've got nickel copper and then we also have a small portion of sulfur demand that goes into uranium. So that's another leaching process and then there's a whole host of different chemicals in the industrial space which forms about 17% of sulfur demand currently and that would be a lot of different things and there's also citric acid for example is one it's used within the refining sector and we have titanium dioxide as well. And what does it do for titanium? So that is used again in a leaching form and titanium dioxide is then used as a pigment in paints and things like that. Yeah we did an episode on titanium and the new process a long time ago. Okay so the vast majority there and this is I guess the story is very much one of fertiliser in some sense. How is sulfur traded in its elemental form in sulfuric acid or in subsequent derivatives in products associated to the phosphoric acid and so forth? How can you give us some sense of how it's stored and shipped? Absolutely so it's traded in different ways. So one the main way in terms of seaborn trade would be as dry as a dry bulk commodity. So it's loaded in different forms you can get prills and granules and things like that in what we call solid sulfur form. So that's the primary way that sulfur is moved around globally from cellars to markets and then there's another form of sulfur which is in liquid form or referred to as molten sulfur and that's where sulfur is heated to a certain temperature and it maintains a liquid form and that would be transported in tank in specialized molten tankers that would need to maintain those heat levels and those would be on much smaller scale. So the majorities around dry bulk really and in terms of how it's sold between buyers and sellers there's a range of different ways in terms of the structure of the market. Some of these are contracts so volumes would be agreed directly between suppliers and end users or using traders and then prices could be negotiated on a quarterly basis and then there's a portion of the market of course as well which is sold on a spot basis. So as and when there is availability sellers will put volumes up for sale on a cargo by cargo basis. In the Middle East there are also several producers that announce sulfur prices on a monthly basis they have official selling prices so the likes of ad-knock KPC for example, Qatar Energy they would every month announce a price and that would be their official price for particular. Yeah and I want to move on to pricing in a moment because I'm kind of interested whether it's negative pricing because they've got to get rid of it but let's get there just a moment on sulfuric acid. So if sulfuric acid were on right is sort of the precursor for most of these fertilizer products. How does sulfur get turned into sulfuric acid and the sulfuric acid then have an entirely different group of traders dealing with it and trade flows and so forth? Yes so in terms of sulfur you would need a what we call a sulfur burner or a sulfuric acid plant these tend to be attached to downstream processes so you'd get like an integrated fertilizer producer which would have their own sulfuric acid plant they would buy the sulfur and in that plant there will be a process and by the end of it they have sulfuric acid or H2SO4 in its chemical form and that would be the raw material that they use as well and so that would really form you know the bulk of where sulfur is going. Okay and are those downstream fertilizer plants typically adjacent to refineries or they in more in the destination locations and do sulfuric acid cargoes I know they do they come up for sort of in that spot market as well and say full. Yes so generally speaking the sites of the downstream, whether that's fertilizers or metals won't be linked to particular. refineries as a general, there will be cases where that does happen, but it's usually more to do with other raw materials that would be key, for example, phosphate rock. If you're an, you know, fully integrated phosphate producer, there wouldn't necessarily be that link, and that's why I guess that traded market is so important for sulfur. Just going back to your other question on the sulfuric acid and how that would link in. So there is a portion as well of what we call merchant sulfuric acid, and that would be traded in a different way and priced in a different way as well. And there is a link, of course, between the two markets, but because of the nature of sulfuric acid, obviously being corrosive chemical, the way it's shipped and so on, whereas with sulfur, of course, in a dry bulk form, there's very different handling capabilities. Yeah, and so for this story, for the most part, we have focused on sulfur as sort of the core commodity in the precursor to all this stuff and the consequential story when it stops getting produced. In a normal world, how does this stuff priced? Is it priced to get rid of it because if we can't get rid of it, the refinery starts backing up. Like, what in general, how does sulfur price, and is that changed geographically and so forth? That's a really good question actually, and I would say this has changed over the years because, you know, prior to the 2007-2008 financial crisis and the bubble sulfur, I think, was very much priced in that way as far as it's considered a byproduct. Some might have said at that time, even a waste product. Nobody says that anymore, but back then, that's what they was, you know, referred to it as, and it was very much around getting it moved, and that was kind of the thinking behind it. However, once we got to 2007, and prices reached, you know, the heights of the $800 ton, $900 ton range, the sentiment around what sulfur is as a commodity really shifted. And I saw that, and really now, we don't really see negative pricing. It's just not the way the market has shifted, and that's really because of the demand growth and the demand sectors and because of that need and requirement. Because it doesn't operate as a regular commodity, when prices are high, nobody is producing more sulfur or vice versa when prices are low. Then there's kind of a different way that it's approached, I think, in terms of the buyers and the sellers and so on. And now, as I said earlier, so contracts and these are, you know, negotiated every single quarter in some cases. And there's of course, PRAs like us at August media, and we assess global prices, and there will be some players in the market that would utilize PRAs and perhaps have prices based off of formulas using those assessments that we cover. Interesting. Is there any sense that it's kind of been the rise of shale that light sweet crude you spoke of that has kind of turned sulfur, you know, used to have all I guess from a sort of a waste to now as a valuable byproduct because there's just less heavy crews being processed out there. I was on my making that up. I think that's been part of it, but it's been a broader shift, I think, towards light sweet crude, not necessarily just on the shale side, but also the move towards electric vehicles and so on. So we've got regionally quite different things happening with that. Western Europe is a good example where we have seen a real shift towards a shortage of sulfur because of what's happened in the refining and the gas sector as well, whether that's depletion of resources, a link to sort of economics as well, not necessarily environmental reasons, a lot of conversions of terminals to renewable fuels and things like that that has led to a downturn in some regions like Western Europe. North America, we've seen something similar in the US and also in Western Canada with a depletion of sour gas based supply, and yeah, on the refining side as well, that has been a trend that we have seen. But on the other hand, elsewhere, we've seen the complete opposite trend as well. So it's very regional in terms of that. It does make me wonder whether I should go and buy some mineral rights in sulfur east Texas on the basis that what happens in the energy transition when people are no longer processing all these heavy crudes in 50 years time and how are we going to get out sulfur? I mean, is that a topic that comes up on, again, am I kind of making things up? No, you're right on. This is probably one of the most asked questions really about the future of the sulfur market of future sulfur supply as the whole world appears to be moving towards electrification, whatever that looks like, and what the case will be for all these downstream end uses as well in terms of being able to source that supply. So there's a few different things I suppose to consider. One is that, yes, you know, particularly on the oil side, we see that our crew team looks at China and things like that, and we see of course like crude oil demand reaching a peak or if not already having peaked in places like that. But then when you look at the investment that is being made in large scale, really sour gas projects in the Middle East, for example, and they're very sour. So they have what we call high hydrogen sulfide content, which is where the sulfur would need to be recovered. And the scale of these projects are so so large. And some of these, you know, in quite early stages of development we'll be seeing them play out in the next five, 10 years, there is still a growth story in some regions at least for additional sulfur supply to come. So I think it will be more a situation of where we have certain regions with growth, other areas declining and that trade picture shifting the further out we go, and increasing focus as well on stocks of sulfur and how it can be stored. And one other thing as well that we are starting to see a little bit more of is innovation in the, I guess, the technology space for sulfur for this reason with different bits of development and investment in how sulfur, all sulfuric acid could be recovered in other processes. I was going to say, I mean, like love of this stuff is 200 years, you know, coming up to 150 years old in terms of technologies. And I, you know, so there is the opportunity there. But I guess also this is such a consequential story because a lot of these assumptions are based on continued investment in the Gulf states and their oil production, which whilst it sounds farcical to say this, it's now possible reality is we could expect that level of investment to drop off quite significantly for a period, especially depending on what the outcome is in Iran. Let's, I've really appreciated that, that's been fantastic, I'm going to, I am indeed going to go and create a sulfur consortium in East Texas and in preparation for my grandkids, but better side, let's talk supply. So perhaps and, and, and, and thank you for your notes on this and obviously your experience here. But it would be rewind to that, I guess, you know, looking at it sort of November or late last year and set the scene there. And then that will nicely set us up for what's going on right now. -Portant to note, I think that really 2025 was a turning point for the sulfur market already prior to the war. And that was for lots of different reasons. One was that we had Indonesia entering the market through the latter part of, well, most of the year, but really in the latter part of the year as well. And the reason that's important is because, you know, historically Indonesia hasn't been a significant player in the global sulfur market, they need to import their needs because they don't have large production. And there's been huge investment from China in Indonesia for the nickel sector. And as a result, their need for sulfur increased significantly. They imported over five million tons of sulfur last year and just to give context, you know, globally, sulfur trade was roughly 40 million tons last year. So it's quite a big portion of that. And because it wasn't for the fertilizer sector, we did see prices rising quite significantly to meet that demand. In addition to that, Russia announced an export ban on sulfur that was in November. And so that already ended up tightening really availability through the fourth quarter and coming into the first quarter. And so there were a few different things happening already that led to the sulfur market being in what we call the structural deficit. And that was in that lead up to, you know, the end of end of February, early March, where we are now. Okay. So structural deficit, then all we know what happens next. But let's start with, I guess, well, a lot happened in Q1. Is there a Venezuela story here at all? In theory, yes. But actually, in terms of sulfur, there hasn't really been a material impact as yet. And that's because Venezuela, you know, it's not really active in the, I don't really have the kit anymore. Yeah, it's more to do with where their heavy crude will go and then be refined. And that would be where the sulfur recovery would come. So, you know, potentially an uplift in some of those US Gulf refineries that are set up to, you know, utilize heavier crude, sour crude, but we're not yet really seeing that have an impact. Okay. Well, let's, so we all know the story. US, Israel, attack Iran and the straightforward moves is effectively shut down within hours. And a bit of the story we don't know of course is what's going with the actual damage done to infrastructure. This delicate, highly valuable infrastructure in the region, which is obviously both production as well as refining capability. Can you just break it down for us? Who was producing what sulfur in the region? And what's happened since the straight shut down has any gone out? And what do we, what do we sort of know about damage and so forth? So a lot there, but yes, unleash basically. Sure. So just some context, then, first of all, so in terms of the share of global production, the countries that used a straight of her moves, it's roughly a third, just over a third. So a huge chunk of global production, but more importantly, the share of global trade is larger. So it's about 50% of that 40 million tonnes I mentioned earlier in terms of what we saw last year. So around close to 20 million tonnes of supply, that would be on an annual basis cut off. That's the first thing. But just on the sound that's consequential. So in some ways, the percentage of global production is misleading because this is a key source of traded sulphur. This is what goes around the world to various fertiliser plants and there's a vibrant market in solving kind of fertiliser demand if you'd like. Exactly. And I think some people as well get quite interested in, okay, so what about the rest of the market? But so for example, if we were to talk about, say, the largest sulphur producer in the world in a country level, and that's actually China, but they are not an exporter. All of their production remains domestic. I think that's why the trade number, the export number is more important in terms of that impact to global markets. That's why how consequential can you break that down a bit more in terms of countries and then I'll see then then what's starting to happen. Absolutely. Yeah. So in terms of the exports and the countries that would be leading, so we have the UAE leading last year in terms of the Middle East, so that that's 20 million tonnes mark roughly 34% of that was UAE after that. It's Saudi Arabia and then Qatar also Q8 of course, Iran itself. Iran itself is a smaller, you know, in that global trade picture, roughly 4% let me look at it. And so it's not really the Iran story, but it's all the other countries in that region. So those would be the main ones. Iraq as well is a much smaller one, about 2%. And then outside of the strait, but in the Middle East, Oman as well, roughly 3% of that trade to figure as well. So it's important as well with all the, you know, the damage that's been done. So I think consider the effects that we'll expect to see beyond this very short term because of the time it will take to bring things back online. Some will of course be quite quick because they've been taken offline as a precaution. But the sites that have been affected by drone strikes will of course need to be assessed in terms of the overall length of time. In capacity terms, when we were looking at, okay, we're going to look at every single plant that's been taken offline in capacity. So this is slightly different from production obviously because operating rates can vary through roughly 17 million tons of sulfur capacity that was initially affected by the strikes whether that led to damage or whether they were taken off voluntarily and remained offline for concern over risks. Okay, and we don't actually know of that 17 million tons. We don't know how much is damaged and how much is just idle. Indeed, yes. So we're still, you know, there's still assessments that are ongoing in terms of that. And so we'll be keeping a close eye on that one. Out of interest. Can this stuff, you know, can it be trucked overland and then loaded in different, you know, is it easier than obviously having to build pipelines and so forth? In other words, you can get this to kind of Oman relatively easy or not. I wouldn't say relatively easy, but can be done and we are seeing some things happening but on a very small scale. So for example, in Saudi, we have Jan Bu and that, you know, that's a potential point of export as well, but on a much smaller scale than DuBail would be in terms of within the straight. So yeah, it's not straight forward answer really, but I think these are all the things that are being looked at now to see how the longer this goes on, you know, what can the consequences be? Turns of trade routes and trade flows that may change and shift. The energy and resources sector is experiencing unprecedented change. To help navigate this change and capture its opportunities, H.C. Group launched Enco Insights, a global advisory network dedicated to the sector, providing senior advisors and subject matter experts to investment and infrastructure funds, law firms and corporates. Enco Insights leverages H.C. Groups 20 years of connections in energy and commodities to give clients the expertise they need when the stakes are high and insight matters. Learn more at Enco Insights.com And then this has had a knock on impact on other countries now, you know, thinking about export bans as well, beyond just Russia and one or two others. But, so, you know, what's going on in Turkey, India and other places like that, you know, as countries start to see the long range impact of this. There's definitely a concern over security of supply. So Turkey has issued a sulfur export ban, which is now taken, come into force as of this month. And then India is understood to be considering an export ban. Obviously they're not a major player in terms of exports. However, there is a huge fertilizer industry domestically that usually relies on Middle Eastern imports. So it's understandable as to why this would be under consideration. So that's just at this point, not confirmed, but just something that is being considered. I wouldn't be surprised if we do start to see other nations looking at this as a, you know, a critical situation because that's what we are in now with that, you know, that downstream consideration across the whole supply chain from, you know, fertilizers metals and everything else that it encompasses on when we look at how sulfur is used. I think this is going to have, you know, long lasting consequences beyond just this year now. And again, it comes back to that question of that sort of equation of impact equals time times by damage kind of thing. We don't know the damage bit. We don't know the time bit. And the other bit of course is, and it sounds bizarre, even to be saying this, but demand destruction can't happen in sulfur in the same way it can in work that would have disastrous consequences as it would, you know, as opposed to rationing diesel for driving and jet fuel for executive trips and so forth, right? What has happened, you know, what has happened to sulfur prices right now, even indeed you can even price it? Okay, great question. So on prices, if we look at prices that are the successes, which we do on a daily basis for sulfur and also on a weekly basis in the global markets. So since January of this year, we've seen an increase in sulfur prices of between anything from 40% up to 79%, 80% in some cases. So they are rising. I'll just go backwards slightly though because if we look at the prices today, compared to January of 2025, prices have gone up by, you know, 400%, 500%. And that was really because of the reasons we talked about earlier and all the things that happened towards the end of last year that led to that structural deficit. And then with the war coming on top of that, we're now talking about prices. For example, if we were to take, you know, Brazil or Indonesia as some of the, you know, the import markets, we're talking about 900 plus dollars per ton of sulfur today. And it's still rising. So we also do run, of course, forecasts on the market. Our expectation is that prices are going to continue to rise in the very short term. So we've ended up now in a scenario where prices are at a premium in terms of a raw material cost for all these key downstream end uses. And, you know, going to link it back to that demand destruction question. I mean, there's two things here, I think. One is the prices. So we've got industries in negative margins now. And then the second is availability. So we are seeing some demand destruction for both of those reasons. And in some cases, it's the who can get the tons and pay the most for it. And that's the situation right now. Yeah. Yeah. I want to get there. But the first one is that we're going to have a lot of money. And then we're going to have a lot of money. I mean, seriously, seriously, the place to move in a, you know, there'll be, there'll be warmer and has all the, all the nature's bounty as well. That aside. Okay, so let's go on to demand. So obviously we've seen demand destruction. And we've got these different use cases for sulfur. There's fertilizer, which is, you know, mission critical for humanity, but also metal. And then we've got these different use cases for sulfur. and other chemical processes, where and how we've seen that demand destruction play out. We're already seeing it in the fertiliser sector, so there have been major producers of fertilizers or phosphate fertilizers announcing cuts and contaminants because of the lack of raw materials. So it wouldn't necessarily just be about sulfur, but the other key raw material within the phosphate fertilizers basis, ammonia, for example. So it's already on its way, so in places like North Africa, also in South Africa as well, and that's been linked to availability elsewhere. We've seen in Indonesia, there have been some announcements from the nickel producers that they will be curtailing some of their production as well in the short term during this period. So it's really across the board at the moment, and I think that if we're talking about 50% of trade is now switched off for the time being out of the Middle East, that automatically means there is demand destruction because there is no replacement for those volumes. So I guess the full consequences of this demand destruction won't be felt yet. It will be down the line as those supply chains shift in terms of the downstream products, essentially. So for example, with fertilizers as well or in that battery material space as those cuts take force and we'll see how that all plays out. Yeah, I've been guilty of saying this as well, but to run it by you to stress test it, there's sort of this idea that we're somewhat okay because we're not in peak fertilizer demand, growing season, etc. And hopefully everything will be back to normal by the time we get near the next wave of fertilizer demand for the southern hemisphere. Is that an old story now? Is that ever a valid story? Are we sort of in high prices and flowing into fertilizers for quite some time? Okay, so I think the piece to mention here is well that it's not just been about the war, so because prior to this we were already in a deficit. So we had already started to see a lot of the fertilizers producers and so on, reducing their sulfur imports, for example, ahead of what will happen February, March time. And so the supply chains were already starting to get a bit stretched in terms of that raw material availability and a lot of end users were moving to using their own stocks, whether that's at ports or in the hands of traders or whether they own stocks. And we've got, I guess, when we look back as well, crop prices haven't been particularly helpful as well. And so we were already in a situation, I think, with high priced fertilizer products prior to this and a farm level as well, this was already having an impact. So I don't see that even given being off-season in certain regions and so on is going to be necessarily helpful because of how we came into that period of time. Yeah, yeah, which is rather depressing. And then have we seen, so what has it been the knock on effect of the sulfuric acid market that we mentioned earlier on? Is there any stores there that have been drawn on? Absolutely. So as soon as this happened really, we saw a lot of the sulfur end users turning to the merchant sulfuric acid market initially to see if they were able to put your tons in that sector. And in some cases end users that have their own sulfuric acid plants are able to then make that switch and just buy in some acid to supplement their raw material requirements. But that has now resulted in some other actions. So we've got over in China, for example, there is a Chinese restriction on sulfuric acid exports as a result of the sulfur deficit right now. And that's ended up creating extremely high prices in the merchants sulfuric acid market and a very tight and short market as well there. So that's also now had a huge impact in a very short space of time. Yeah. And as you mentioned, most of the Chinese stuff is used internally. And I guess there's also concerns there as well because where there is spare capacity in all those teapot refiners. Most of those would be then impacted by sanctions as a result of using Iranian and Russian crude as well. So even the ability to buy that stuff I imagine is a challenge. Indeed, exactly. And the China story is quite interesting because it's a net importer of sulfur, but they're actually an exporter of sulfuric acid. They're actually the largest exporter globally or at least they were last year. So they exported, I mean, and then the global acid trade market isn't very large. It's roughly 20 million tons or so in terms of what's traded every year compared to production of like 300 million tons annually. So their exports of four point seven million tons last year, the markets rely on this raw material, particularly places like Chile where they need it for their copper sector. And so I think it can't be I think understated now with both sulfur and acid raw material both being tight and these prices that how serious of a situation we are now in. Yeah, I guess that's the kind of it feels like it will be it with the price rises that we've seen. You're speaking about half the sort of globally traded sulfur off the market. And I know that there's sort of this we're in this strange Dumbog described at this moment as kind of a shrodinger's cat where you know it could go either way and we just don't really know right. I mean, it could all open up tomorrow. We don't know the damage and time is ticking on and it will take a long time for all this to fire back up and then you have that and I want to come on to the long range in a minute. But just at the moment, you know, you've had half this global trade globally traded sulfur taken off the market. What's the scale of alarm at this stage? Is this being spoken about government levels of firms walking in other the ag houses to fertiliser houses walking around saying like this is a massive problem with very little solution available other than demand destruction by price and then cascading export bands and a destruction of a globally free market that has fed the world. I mean, I don't want to get too dramatic, but is when you're when you're in your travels and meeting with clients, you know, conferences and so forth, what is the scale of alarm right now? Are we deaf, conforms? Is that shoe yet to drop? It's interesting because when we think about sulfur, it's a byproduct. There hasn't really been a lot of attention on it to this scale before. So I don't know that, you know, at government level, there is that much scrutiny on the sulfur piece. It will be more, you know, along the lines of securing fertilizers and energy sources and so on. So I think that the sulfur piece is more in terms of the panic or concern. Maybe let's call it concern is really within the industry, the players operating within that. And yes, there is extreme concern about the current situation, about the next six months, about the next 18 months, two years, really of the sulfur market and how it's going to be addressed. As you said, very little and that can be done. It's a byproduct. Nobody's going to think it is the linchpin, right? I mean, essentially all the it is the link, the linchpin between energy production and fertilizer production. And, you know, and the infrastructure both produce it as well as to convert it takes a long time to build, but essentially all those discussions at some point will come back to the flow of sulfur, right? Which is why you're talking about stockpiling and so forth, but it just seems to be at the moment it seems sort of somewhat sort of academic and slightly shrill to sort of be saying, well, this could really easily tip over into a food crisis. And again, because it all could open up tomorrow, and we know the political goal is to do that because it's just so painful domestically for the US administration. But that's fascinating. It's not quite hit. The sulfur is not on the front page of the FT yet, right? It's more sort of risk of fertiliser, risk of energy. But I can imagine a world where sulfur is up there and and yourself as a is quoted in it. Yeah, I guess the fact that we now have countries that are installing sulfur export bands does indicate a level of awareness to that, you know, to that end, but not enough yet. I don't think because, you know, we still have, of course, you know, exports from India still ongoing until that actually materialises. And if it even materialises that they decide to place a ban on that trade and trying to secure in their own supply of this key raw material, yeah, no, for sure. Does India have domestic fertiliser production? Yes, it does. It's a huge importer of finished fertiliser products and is also a large producer and therefore consumer of sulfur. Yeah, interesting. Okay, and I know this is going to be very hard, but we would say, you know, roughly speaking conflict over in the next couple of weeks. There is damage, obviously, no damage to the guitar, and then G and so forth. But things roughly start going back to normal. Is there an argument that actually we're now in a structural long term shift up in the price of sulfur because it is essentially a critical mineral. Or, you know, it is a people will be stockpiling it and there won't be the same is arguable there won't be the same level of investment in crude production gas production and refining in the Middle East because of the fragility and value of those in that infrastructure in what will be under the code in the case of a ceasefire or some agreement. Basically, still having the sort of damage that is held over them, a big question, but what's also the sense there? What is the what is the longer range discussion going to be? It's sort of too far really, so you mentioned. of course that the time it will take to, so if everything opens up tomorrow, the time it will take to get all the damage sites back to production. But then it's all the investment that's already in, that's taken place. So we had a whole host of projects that would do online this year alone in Iraq, in a Bahrain, an expansion there in Saudi Arabia as well on the gas side and all of these projects were, were meant to be, you know, shifting that balance this year. These are now all pushed in terms of their timelines. So many of these are already constructed. So the ones that are obviously already, the capex is in. We would expect those to be coming online later down the line. Those timelines were currently pushing through in that 2027 of a timeline at the moment. And then you've got the larger projects like Qatar's Northfield expansion project on the LNG side, which was meant to yield over three million tons of air of sulphur capacity at the moment when out, you know, thinking about pushing that through into, you know, 2028 sort of timeframe. And so there are, you know, projects that will be coming online, even in this very, you know, sort of risky geopolitical climate eventually. I think the issue will then be the projects that have not reached that point yet that were under discussion, that were in development. And I think that that's a really important question. I mean, outstaking a step back and outside of the Middle East, where obviously looking at, you know, other regions, particularly in terms of where we see the investment in the refining side is actually over in China, even with that, you know, that moved towards electric vehicles in China. We, there was a whole host of projects that are due online. There's two that are coming online in the next sort of six week time frame actually, which will be adding to that sulphur balance. So I really see the next two years as being the time where we end up in this tighter period that deficit higher prices for sulphur. And then as we move towards that 2028, 2029 timeframe, and that's when in theory, if all of these projects were tracking due materialized and come online, we would then see a correction, a more meaningful correction in prices. Yeah, this is probably really unfair. But is there a rough rule of thumb equation that people can use to track the price of sulphur to the price of fertilized to the price of food? You know, is there sort of, is there a eristic calculation out there and can we use it to divine what this will have potentially impact on food prices in general? Unfortunately, there's not a general rule of thumb. You should do it. You could, you know, the Chaoan equation. Yeah, yeah, should come up with something, shouldn't I? Yeah. Well, I find it absolutely fascinating. It's been really excellent to have you on, Meena. Thank you for your time. And hopefully we can have you back on in the years time and it can all be gone back to normal and we're back in a world of small structural deficits and so forth. And trade is doing their thing of solving, solving for challenges in time, location and form and price and all the rest of it, rather than the kind of the world we're in right now. Thank you very much for great to be here and talk about my favourite topic. Thank you for listening. To find out more about HC Group, our global offices and our expertise in search within the commodities sector, please visit www.hcgroup.global.