With the market in sulfuric acid booming due to increased demand, sulfuric acid stocks open up some great profit opportunities for savvy investors.

According to the London Times, the price of sulfur has risen from $50 to $500 a ton in under a year.

Food shortages and higher grain prices are boosting demand for fertilisers, and in only a year the price of sulphur has risen more than tenfold from $50 a tonne to $500 a tonne, according to ICIS, the chemicals-pricing service. The extraordinary surge in the price of sulphur is expected to generate windfall profits for some oil companies, notably Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron, as well as Gulf oil producers, such as Saudi Aramco and Adnoc, the Abu Dhabi national oil company.

There are a number of sulfuric acid stock market plays. This from Chris Mayer in The Daily Reckoning:

Most are big chemical companies that you wouldn’t buy if you only wanted exposure to sulfuric acid. Owning them is like buying Home Depot because you think it sells a great lawn mower. The only “pure play” on the idea I could find is a little company called Chemtrade Logistics in Canada, one of the world’s largest suppliers of sulfuric acid. It trades in Toronto under the ticker symbol CHE. You can find a quote on Yahoo using CHE-UN.TO.

It’s a Canadian income trust and pays a monthly distribution of about 10 cents. Based on a price of $11.44, that’s a yield of 10.5 percent. The company appears to be in good financial condition and throws off a lot of cash flow, much of which investors pocket in the distribution.

It’s not a sexy business, but it looks like an interesting play on what seems at least a temporary scarcity of a key chemical. Chemtrade is not a one-trick pony. It also produces liquid sulfur dioxide and sodium hydrosulfite. The company also sells into a wide range of end markets, so you’re not tied to the fortunes of any single sector. The company has an excellent presentation of its business, complete with slides, on its Web site.

Since I have not completed my research on either Chemtrade or on the overall sulfuric acid industry, I did not recommend Chemtrade to the subscribers of my investment service, Mayer’s Special Situations. But since this sector is red-hot at the moment and appealing on many levels, I decided to share the insights I’ve gleaned so far. I plan to do more research on the idea and keep an eye on it.

I would advise all investors to do the same. The skyrocketing price of sulfuric acid shows how interrelated the world’s commodity markets and economies have become. And these interrelationships can produce investment opportunities at light-speed. Agriculture, energy, metals…they’re all part of one big story – one big rapidly evolving story.