SHORTAGE OF SULPHUR

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26394, 12 April 1951, Page 3

SHORTAGE OF SULPHUR

BIG TONNAGE NEEDED IN EUROPE GENEVA, March 26. The present sulphur shortage is no surprise to international experts here who advised governments some two years ago that there appeared to be insufficient sulphur available for export from the United States. Plans for 1951, drafted early in 1949, contemplated an increase in sulphuric acid production of about 2,000,000 tons, requiring an additional 700,000 tons of sulphur. Europe was already importing some 600,000 tons of sulphur from the United States, and it was evident that the latter was not likely to be in a position to meet such additional requirements.

The Industry and Material Committee of the Economic Commission for Europe therefore recommended that an additional 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 tons of pyrites should be found in Europe and that most of the new plants should be able to burn pyrites, instead of Frasch-mined sulphur. It was believed that a substantial additional production of pyrites could be forthcoming partly from existing mines, but mainly by opening new ones in Italy, Greece, Jugoslavia, and perhaps Norway and Cyprus. Use of Pyrites The higher production cost of the pyrites process nas up to now deterred producers from using this source of raw material, so that much of the new sulphuric acid capacity, especially in Britain, is designed to operate with United States Frasch-mined sulphur. In pre-war years Great Britain, with 40 per cent., used the highest proportion of sulphur against pyrites (that is, 40 tons of sulphur against 100 tons of pyrites sulphur content). France used pyrites exclusively, Belgium 6 per cent, sulphur, Germany 10 per cent., and Norway 13 per cent. By 1948, the use of sulphur had become general in Western Europe, and Britain by then consumed 280 per cent, of sulphur against pyrites, whereas France only reached 14 per cent, and Belgium 40 per cent. Since then, the British production of sulphuric acid has increased by some 300,000 tons, the consumption of pyrites remaining steady at the 1948 level, thus increasing the depedence on sulphur imports from the United States. United States Reserves Fall American sources express concern at the decrease in United States sulphur reserves, which have been drawn on heavily during the last six years. They were estimated at 80.000,000 tons in 1944, and 25,000,000 tons were used without the discovery of substantial new deposits. The United States itself has increased its proportion of sulphur use from 64 per cent, of total production in 1939 to 80.8 per cent, in 1949. The use of pyrites decreased accordingly from 23 per cent, to 12 per cent. A rise in total production of American surphuric acid by some 20 per cent, since the end of the war is more than enough to explain the present chortage. As far as Europe is concerned, the reconvers : on of sulphur plants into pyrites plants would certainly put a heavy strain on the industry’s capital resources.