INTERNATIONAL
Soda Ash Global Trade Pattern Will Shift Markedly in This Decade U.S. will become leading supplier and exports from Western Europe will diminish sharply; rising energy costs will plague Solvay process The pattern of global production and trade of soda ash (sodium carbonate) is heading for a major shift throughout the decade. The long-standing Solvay process will continue to run up against rising energy costs and competition from mined material. The U.S. will become the dominant global supplier, and exports from Western Europe essentially will cease. The industry itself faces a growing threat from plastics use for making bottles and jars, traditionally a captive outlet for glass, which, in turn, is the largest single market for soda ash. This summary of the outlook for soda ash surfaced from the symposium, Soda Ash—Changing Perspectives, held recently in London. The symposium was sponsored jointly by the Society of Chemical Industry and the Society of Glass Technology. Three regions account for about 84% of world soda ash production, which, in 1980, was about 29 million metric tons. Eastern Europe is marginally the largest with 32%, or 9.28 million metric tons of output. North America runs a close second with 28%), or 8.12 million metric tons. Synthetic soda ash plants in Western Europe—specifically Austria, Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the U.K.—provide 24%, or 6.96 million metric tons. Of the remaining output, countries in Asia and Oceania produce 13% (3.77
million metric tons), and the balance comes from Latin America (2%), and Africa and the Middle East (1%). The production profile will be similar in years ahead, according to Barbara A. Herrmann and Roger E. Shamel of Consulting Resources Corp. of Lexington, Mass. Output will grow an average of about 2% per year to reach 36 million metric tons in 1990. In that year, Eastern Europe
and North America likely will be on a par, each with 30% (10.8 million metric tons) of the total. Western Europe's share will decline to 21% (7.56 million metric tons). Asia and Oceania's share will stay at 13% (4.68 million metric tons). Africa and the Middle East, and Latin America both will advance to a 3% share (1.08 million metric tons). Global demand for soda ash in
U.S. will become even more important global supplier of soda ash by 1990
Canada Europe
4 Central â South America
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Australasia Trade volume (thousands of metric tons)
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Source: Consulting Resources Corp.
February 14, 1983 C&EN
23
International 1980 matched production, Herrmann and Shamel say. They foresee the same relationship maintained in 1990. There are differences in regional demand patterns, however. East bloc countries constituted the biggest 1980 consumers with 29% of the total, 8.41 million metric tons. Western Europe is next with 25% (7.25 million metric tons), followed by North America with 24% (6.96 million metric tons), Asia and Oceania with 15% (4.35 million metric tons), Latin America with 5% (1.45 million metric tons), and Africa and the Middle East with 2% (580,000 metric tons). By 1990, some regional shifts will have occurred. Hermann and Shamel believe the East bloc will move up closer to 30% of total consumption (to 10.8 million metric tons). Consumption in both North America and Western Europe will slip to 23% of the total (8.28 million metric tons), in Pacific region countries it will rise to 16% (5.76 million metric tons), and in Latin America to 6% (2.16 million metric tons). In Africa and the Middle East, use will remain at 2% of the total (720,000 metric tons). These changes, though seemingly slight, will influence the flow of international trade in the product profoundly, the Lexington market researchers predict. The Africa/ Middle East region, for instance, likely will swing from a deficit to a surplus situation by 1990, and so it will have greater potential for selling product on world markets. More will be available for export from the U.S., where output will increase while the U.S. demand will slacken. "By 1990, world soda ash trade patterns will show some significant shifts/' Shamel told the London meeting. "The most noticeable change is that the U.S. will become even more important as a world supplier. Exports, which in 1980 accounted for about 12% of total U.S. demand, will be more than 20% by 1990." In addition to boosting exports to Western Europe, U.S. producers will seek additional business in Asia and Latin America, thereby encroaching on some of Europe's existing export outlets for the material. Such a prospect, naturally, is viewed with some apprehension by soda ash makers in Western Europe. 24
February 14, 1983 C&EN
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Shamel: similar production profile Indeed, feelings already are running high against imports from East bloc countries as well as from the U.S., which, the Europeans allege, have been sold in their domestic markets at dumped prices. As far back as 1978, the Commission of the European Communities took antidumping action against Bulgaria, East Germany, Poland, Romania, and the U.S.S.R. at the behest of the European Council of Chemical Manufacturers' Federations (CEFIC). And last November, EC imposed a dumping duty of about 17% on product supplied by several U.S. companies. Dumping aside, West European producers will have increasing difficulty competing with U.S. material. It takes more energy to make soda ash by the Solvay process than it does to extract it from the naturally occurring trona deposits in Wyoming, or from the salt brines of Searles Lake in California. Dennis S. Kostick of the U.S. Bureau of Mines in Washington, D.C., citing a 1973 study, notes that 15.8 million Btu of energy are needed to make a ton of soda ash by the Solvay process, compared to 7.2 million Btu to produce a ton from natural sources. One U.S. producer, FMC, expects to reduce the cost of recovering soda ash from trona by 25% using its own novel solution mining technology. The company will install the process
at its Green River, Wyo., operation to raise annual capacity there to 3.85 million tons, a million tons beyond the existing level. Shaving costs also is a goal in glassmaking, which accounts for about half of the soda ash currently used. (The remainder goes toward making chemicals, pulp and paper, and soaps and detergents.) Here, again, natural soda ash with its negligible sodium chloride content has the edge on technical grounds over the synthetic product. As Geoffrey N. Iley, a director of Pilkington Brothers, a major international glassmaking concern, explains, "An important feature of flat glass furnace operation and design is the need for heat recovery. This is achieved by use of [heat] regenerators, the chambers of which are packed with refractory bricks with passages through which waste gases pass. "Regenerators have been subject to blockage due to deposits forming from condensation within the passages. This blockage has become more critical as waste gas exit temperatures have been reduced [to conserve energy]. "Although the major material deposited is sodium sulfate, the rate and quantity is influenced by the sodium chloride level of the raw material input into the furnace, of which soda ash is the biggest contributor. Our experience has shown that regenerator blockage problems do not occur with Wyoming soda ash. These results have important implications for fuel efficiency and furnace life." Makers of glass in Europe as elsewhere are battling to reduce costs on the one hand, and to stem erosion of their markets by plastics on the other. Because the price they pay for soda ash, which acts as a flux and reduces the temperature at which glass melting occurs, is a sizable factor in their costs, they have riled against the dumping duty imposed on imports by the European Economic Community. Kay Brown of the U.K.'s United Glass Containers pointedly comments, "The only way we can increase consumption is to increase production of glass containers. Anything that pushes up the cost of glassmaking is bad news for the glass industry, and bad news for producers of soda ash." D
