Russian fertilizer producers request temporary sulfur price cap - source
MOSCOW. March 18 (Interfax) - Russian fertilizer producers are asking the government to set a temporary price cap on sulfur, which has risen sharply on domestic and international markets due to a supply shortage.
The Russian Fertilizer Producers Association sent a letter regarding this to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Patrushev in February, a source at an agency, familiar with the letter, told Interfax.
Prices for sulfur, a key component of phosphate fertilizers, have risen more than 300% since the start of 2025 to $400-500 per tonne due to a drop in sulfur production in Russia and Kazakhstan caused by unscheduled stoppages at gas and oil processing facilities, reducing global market supply, the letter says.
A "critical situation" has emerged in the sulfur market, threatening a reduction in fertilizer production. Fertilizer prices are unable to keep up with rising costs, and "many companies in the sector are operating at a loss or are barely breaking even," the Association said.
"Stabilizing sulfur prices will help keep mineral fertilizer producers operating steadily, support investment activity, meet the needs of farmers and industrial consumers, and fulfill export supply obligations. Members of the Russian Fertilizer Producers Association are prepared to apply market pricing mechanisms once sulfur production and export volumes recover (and the domestic market is fully supplied)," the source said, quoting the letter.
The Association declined to comment.
The sulfur market entered a phase of acute deficit in the middle of 2025, mainly due to production cuts in Russia and a temporary ban on its exports from late 2025, T-Investments analyst Akhmed Aliyev said. Sulfur prices have more than tripled since the beginning of last year, and the non-integrated DAP margin (including the costs of apatite, ammonia, and sulfur) has turned negative.
"Since the start of the conflict in Iran, sulfur prices have risen by another 14% (CFR China) and hit a new all-time high as operations at several plants in the Middle East were suspended. However, DAP/MAP fertilizer prices have also gone up 5%-8%, compensating companies for the higher sulfur price. As a result, the non-integrated DAP margin is currently near zero, which is still very low compared to the cyclical average of 15%," he said.
Rosstat has said technical gas sulfur production in Russia fell 22% to 4.4 million tonnes in 2025 and nearly 30% year-on-year in January this year, to 407,000 tonnes.
Russia's biggest sulfur producers are Gazprom's Astrakhan and Orenburg gas processing plants. According to the company, the Astrakhan Gas Processing Plant has produced up to 66% of Russian and up to 7% of the world's sulfur in recent years.
More than 80% of the sulfur is used to produce sulfuric acid for phosphate fertilizers. Its main consumers are PhosAgro , Uralchem, and EuroChem.
PhosAgro's sulfur and sulfuric acid costs increased 3.1-fold year-on-year in the first nine months of 2025, the company said in a financial statement. Their share of costs approached 14%, compared to approximately 5% a year earlier.
S&P Global has said Russia accounted for up to 10% of global sulfur exports in 2019-2020. Sulfur exports from the country amounted to just over 1 million tonnes in 2024, up 74% from 2019, S&P said in the autumn of 2025, citing traders, that Russian consumers had begun importing sulfur, which turned the market upside down.
Russia banned exports of certain types of sulfur on November 1 last year until March 31 this year to stabilize domestic supplies of this raw material in order to maintain current fertilizer production volumes.
