MOSCOW (MRC) -- Chlorine production in Europe increased 3.3% year on year (YOY) in January to 855,883 metric tons, with the average daily rate of 27,609 metric tons also rising 6% month on month from December’s daily rate of 26,045 metric tons, or 807,438 metric tons in total, according to Chemweek.
It is the fourth consecutive monthly rise YOY in output, and the highest monthly total for two years, according to data from Euro Chlor, the European chlor-alkali industry association.
Caustic soda stocks rose YOY by 6,617 metric tons to 233,430 metric tons in January and increased 12.3% compared to December 2020’s total of 207,855 metric tons, it says.
Europe’s average chlorine production capacity utilization rate in January rose YOY by 2.5% to 86.7%, the highest rate achieved since February 2020.
Euro Chlor’s figures are drawn from the EU-27 countries plus Norway, Switzerland, and the UK. The association represents 38 companies producing chlorine in 19 countries.
As MRC reported earlier, in January 2021, Industria Quimica del Istmo (Iquisa; Mexico City, Mexico) hired Bluestar Chemical Machinery Co. (BCMC) to build a membrane-cell chlor-alkali plant in Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, with capacity to produce 150,000 metric tons/year of chlorine. BCMC said then it will supply its proprietary electrolysis technology for the project, which is to begin construction this month and to be completed within two years.
We remind that November production of sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) in Russia were 111,000 tonnes (100% of the basic substance) versus 108,000 tonnes a month earlier. Russia's overall output of caustic soda totalled 1,165,600 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2020, down by 1.3% year on year.
MRC