With production outstripping demand, prices for soda ash (sodium carbonate) remain depressed, resulting in plant closures as companies seek to reduce supplies.
The latest casualties include IMC Chemicals’ 285,000-tonne-per-year plant in Duisburg, Germany, and General Chemical’s 420,000-tonne-per-year plant in Amherstburg, Ont. Indeed, since 1991, only three soda ash plants have been built.
No significant price increases are expected in the short term, according to the latest (ninth) edition of Economics of Soda Ash, published by Roskill Information Services, and the current recession is expected to keep demand at a minimum.
In the long term, however, Chinese exports should fall as domestic demand continues to grow, reducing the imbalance between supply and demand. Also, growing demand by the glass industry should allow companies to raise prices by 2005.
The world produces about 45 million tonnes of soda ash per year, with 14.7 million tonnes concentrated in North America. Capacity is largest in the U.S., including the American Soda operation in Colorado and a 0.36-million-tonne-per-year expansion by Solvay Minerals in Green River, Wyo. However, 2.4 million tonnes per year, or 20%, of that country’s capacity is currently mothballed.
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