Foreign Policy Association — Central Asia

Kazakhstan vs. ENI: Showdown

….in general oil majors operating in Kazakhstan are dealing with some seemingly unresolvable problems. We don’t like sulfur in our fuels, for instance; sour gas creates more pollution and is harder to refine. When that sulfur is extracted out, it goes into a world market that is supply-glutted. Many of the environmental violations for oil in Kazakhstan have to do with a sulfur that nobody wants, causes pollution, and that oil companies would be more than happy to get rid of at almost any low price you could name….([1] Full Story)
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Right, and how will HAZCO make money on the sulphur it alleges it will produce in Bruderheim for the world market?

As to “any low price you could name”, oil companies operating in Alberta gave about $10 for each tonne of sulphur that anyone took off their hands in the second half of 2001, and they gave their sulphur away for nothing in the summer of 2007.

Right now the plant-gate price of sulphur is $40 a tonne, far short of recovering the cost of production or of shipping it to Vancouver and loading it there for export.

Nevertheless, even though there is no money to be made by the Canadian economy for exporting sulphur, sulphur processors, shippers and handlers get paid and make money.

Guess out of whose wallet that money comes. — folc.ca