Russia Opens Sulfuric Acid Pricing Cases Against Four Producers
Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service has opened cases against four sulfuric acid producers suspected of setting and maintaining monopolistically high prices in 2024–2025. The investigation focuses on weighted-average prices, production costs, sales volumes and changes in company profits.
Competition cases target four producers
Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service, or FAS, has opened cases against four sulfuric acid producers after identifying signs that they set and maintained monopolistically high prices. According to Kommersant, the proceedings concern Mednogorsk Copper-Sulfur Plant LLC, Sredneuralsk Copper Smelter JSC, Svyatogor JSC and Karabashmed JSC.
The cases were initiated under paragraph 1, part 1, Article 10 of Russia’s Federal Law on Protection of Competition, the authority’s press service said. FAS considers all four companies dominant participants in the wholesale sulfuric acid market. The opening of proceedings establishes a formal competition review; the source material does not report a final finding, penalty or required price adjustment.
Regulator examined costs, sales and profits
FAS based its concerns on an analysis of the producers’ weighted-average sulfuric acid prices and production costs. It also reviewed sales volumes and changes in company profits. The authority concluded that the companies had applied monopolistically high prices during 2024–2025, according to Kommersant, although the publication did not disclose individual prices, cost levels, margins or sales volumes.
The absence of company-level figures limits an assessment of how far prices may have diverged from costs and whether the four suppliers followed the same pricing pattern. It also leaves the potential financial exposure unclear. For industrial buyers, the central issue is whether the cases lead to changes in wholesale terms, but no interim measures or timetable for decisions were reported.
Industrial buyers await the outcome
Sulfuric acid is the physical product at the center of the cases, while the companies named by FAS are also associated in the source with copper and sulfur operations. The proceedings may therefore matter to buyers that depend on wholesale supply, including fertilizer and metals businesses. Any commercial effect, however, will depend on the authority’s final decisions and on whether it orders remedies; neither outcome is specified in the available material.
The regional supply picture may also change as new capacity comes online. Kommersant reported that EuroChem-Fertilizers, a subsidiary of Russia’s EuroChem, planned to launch the first phase of sulfuric acid production in Kazakhstan’s Zhambyl Region in December 2025. The stated capacity is 800,000 tonnes. A complex fertilizer plant with annual capacity of 1 million tonnes was expected to be commissioned by 2026. The report does not say how much of the acid output would be available to third-party buyers or whether it would affect the Russian wholesale market directly.
FAS scrutiny extends across commodity markets
The sulfuric acid proceedings form part of broader FAS attention to producer pricing. Kommersant said the authority had previously examined the justification for wholesale selling prices charged by margarine producers, including 1 Kopeisky Oil and Fat Plant LLC. It requested information on 2025 production volumes, costs and sales profitability.
FAS also reviewed pricing by major chicken-meat producers, including Cherkizovo, GAP Resurs and Prioskolye, which were described as holding a collectively dominant position in the agricultural poultry market. Those reviews concern separate products and companies, but they show the regulator’s repeated use of cost, profitability and market-position data when assessing wholesale prices. For sulfuric acid producers and their customers, the immediate focus remains the evidence in the four newly opened cases and any remedies that may follow.
