For a commodity essential to everything from pharmaceuticals to agriculture and mining, sulfur rarely makes headlines. But the Iran war is showing why the world should pay closer attention.

That’s because by throttling global energy markets, the widening conflict is also wreaking havoc on the global trade of sulfur, which today is largely produced as a byproduct from the oil and gas sectors. Once converted into sulfuric acid—known as the “king of chemicals”—it powers operations across the fertilizer, metals, and pharmaceutical sectors. Which means that any disruptions to the sulfur market reverberate far beyond it.

For a commodity essential to everything from pharmaceuticals to agriculture and mining, sulfur rarely makes headlines. But the Iran war is showing why the world should pay closer attention.

That’s because by throttling global energy markets, the widening conflict is also wreaking havoc on the global trade of sulfur, which today is largely produced as a byproduct from the oil and gas sectors. Once converted into sulfuric acid—known as the “king of chemicals”—it powers operations across the fertilizer, metals, and pharmaceutical sectors. Which means that any disruptions to the sulfur market reverberate far beyond it.

Given its dominance in energy production, the Middle East is also a sulfur powerhouse. The region accounts for about half of all global sulfur exports, with top destinations including China, India, Indonesia, and the United States, said Meena Chauhan, the head of sulfur and sulfuric acid research at Argus Media, which provides global energy and commodity market intelligence.

But the Iran war—as well as the resulting standstill at the Strait of Hormuz—have strangled those flows, scrambling supply chains worldwide.

“Now we’re in uncharted territory really, because of how important the Middle East is,” said Chauhan.

Part of the problem is that even before the Iran war began in February, the sulfur market was already quite tight. Prices had been nearing three- or four-year highs as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as new demand from the fertilizer sector and Indonesia’s nickel industry, said James Willoughby, a research analyst at Wood Mackenzie, an energy research firm.

All of those pressures have only intensified with the Iran war. As the conflict has bludgeoned energy production, sulfur prices have skyrocketed, indicative of just how intertwined both sectors are. The sector has now come under so much strain that countries are taking measures to insulate their own economies from the shock. Turkey announced a ban on sulfur exports last week, and India is also mulling its own export restrictions, Reuters reported.

Starting in May, China is reportedly also planning to stop exporting sulfuric acid produced as a byproduct of copper and zinc smelting. China is the leading global sulfur importer as well as a major sulfur producer, with Chinese production last year accounting for about 16 percent of the global market—although all of those volumes are consumed domestically, said Chauhan.

At the same time, China is also the world’s biggest single exporter of sulfuric acid, with those exports last year accounting for 20 percent of the global sulfuric acid trade, Chauhan said. Top destinations include Chile, which relies on sulfuric acid in its copper sector; Indonesia, which has a booming nickel industry; and Morocco and Saudi Arabia, which use sulfuric acid for processed phosphates, she said.

Beijing’s potential measures are likely aimed at shielding its own economy from external pressures, analysts said. “It’s very clear, given what an important commodity this is, the ban is in effect a strategic reaction to protect domestic consumers,” said Sangita Gayatri Kannan, who researches mineral and energy economics at the Colorado School of Mines.

But all of those trade restrictions, which come on top of the Iran war’s economic shock waves, are only set to continue to drive up prices and squeeze a market that was already facing immense pressure. That’s because sulfuric acid isn’t easily replaced or immediately substitutable, and it will be difficult for anyone to cobble together enough sulfur supplies to make up for the trade that has been disrupted by conflict in the Middle East.

“Even combining all of those potential bits of supply around the world would still not be enough to meet the volume that the Middle East exports,” said Chauhan.

Since sulfuric acid underpins phosphate fertilizer, the global sulfur crunch promises to further strain agricultural markets, which have already been feeling the pain of the Iran war. The Middle East is a major fertilizer hub, and weeks of war and shipping disruptions have sent fertilizer costs soaring around the world.

It also spells trouble for the mining sector, which relies on sulfuric acid for extraction and processing. Asia-based traders of dry sulfur are reportedly now scrambling to secure alternate supplies, Bloomberg reported, while Indonesian nickel producers who import the bulk of their sulfur from the Middle East may be forced to make production cuts.

Robert Friedland, the founder of Ivanhoe Mines, said in a post on X that the Middle East is the source of more than 90 percent of the sulfur imported into Africa.

“I have heard that traders are already struggling to source any. Sulphuric acid prices will therefore significantly increase across Africa,” he wrote. “If the disruption lasts longer than ~3 weeks, copper oxide operations will have to close as they’ve run out of acid.”

If the Iran war continues to throttle energy production and global trade, a prolonged sulfur supply crunch may leave even more firms with little other choice than to quash production or shut down.

“It’s not just about willingness to pay anymore,” said Kannan of the Colorado School of Mines, because “if the material is not available, to what extent can you do anything about it?”