Global Chlor-Alkali Market worth $88.6Bn by 2017

Wednesday 28 November 2012, Amsterdam

The report “Chlor-Alkali Market, By Products (Caustic Soda/Sodium Hydroxide, Chlorine, Soda Ash/Sodium Carbonate), Applications & Geography: Global Industry Trends & Forecasts to 2017” defines and segments the global chlor-alkali market by products with analysis and forecasting of the global volume and revenue. As of year 2012, Asia consumes almost half of the combined volume of all the aforesaid products followed by North America and Europe. The major application segments for chlorine are PVC and organic chemicals, for caustic soda major applications are pulp and paper and organic and inorganic chemicals; whereas for soda ash glass constitutes the major application segment. Chlorine and caustic soda are mainly produced using membrane and diaphragm technology with mercury cell process in phasing out mode. Soda ash is mainly produced using Solvay process.

The drivers of the industry are identified as high growth in developing regions, high demand in end-user industries, and high existing production capacities of chlor-alkali products. Most of the production capacity of chlor-alkali products exists in Asian region and high growth in their demand is mainly observed in developing countries. The high production capacities in the region also give flexibility to the manufacturers to scale up the production depending upon demand trends. The restraining factors are identified as environmental concerns and energy intensive operations of the chlor-alkali industry. The issues in the market are mainly pertaining to that of a maturing industry .i.e. steady growth in mature markets such as U.S. and Europe, and environmental concerns like carbon and mercury emissions. The industry players are following strategies such as consolidation and capacity expansion to address to the demands generated by end-user industries and developing countries.

The major players in the market are

The DOW Chemical Company (U.S.), Occidental Chemical Corporation (U.S.), Bayer AG (Germany), PPG Industries (U.S.), Tata Chemicals Ltd (India), Shin-Etsu Chemical Co. Ltd (Japan), Formosa Plastics Corp. (Taiwan), Solvay Chemicals (Belgium), Ineos Chlor Ltd (U.K.), FMC Corporation (U.S.), Shangdong Haihua Group Co. Ltd (China), and Ciech S.A. (Poland).