COMMERCIAL CONTROL OF SULPHUR AND PYRITE
Before 1906 the Italian deposits were largely controlled by the Anglo-Sicilian Sulphur Co., representing English capital, but since that time, when the Italian government undertook to control the industry, the commercial control has been primarily Italian.
In the United States the commercial control of sulphur output is in the hands of three companies, one of which started producing just about the time of the outbreak of the European war and another whose production was just beginning in 1919. So far as is known, there is no combination among these three interests. The Union Sulphur Co., which was the first and principal producer, controls certain patents covering the “Frasch Process.” During the war period an agreement was entered into by which alleged infringement of patents was not pushed. Since the close of the war it remains to be seen to what extent the patent rights involved may affect the production of the other two companies, the Freeport and the Texas Gulf, which in general use a similar process.
The production of sulphur in Japan is commercially controlled by Japanese interests.
An American company, the Virginia-Carolina Chemical Co., owns a sulphur deposit in Mexico, which was leased, before the war, to German interests. Several other deposits in Mexico and South America were reported as controlled by German interests, but thus far the production from all these sources has been relatively of minor importance and there is no immediate prospect of any great change.
The significant factor of commercial control in the pyrite situation is the large investment of British capital in the Spanish deposits and to a less extent the investment of French capital. United States capital controls the principal pyrite developments in Canada, Cuba, Mexico and Cyprus. English, French and Swedish capital is invested in Norway.