News
Lithium Shortage Can Make Transition to Electric Vehicles Unsustainable
July 5, 2018
Lithium-based compounds have become a primary ingredient of the lithium-ion batteries used in hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) and electric vehicles (EV). The amount of lithium consumed by these types of vehicles varies, but it is …
Fluorspar Is Critical Raw Material in European Manufacturing Value Chains
June 13, 2018
Fluorspar is applied in the production of hydrofluoric acid (which is a feedstock for fluorine-containing compounds, incl. fluoropolymers), steelmaking, aluminium manufacturing, and other consumption sectors. It is included in the regularly updated list of critical raw materials (CRMs). The list …
Environmental and Social Factors Affect Global Sodium Cyanide Market
June 5, 2018
Sodium cyanide plays an important role in the mining solutions business due to its capacity to meet the growing demand from the gold and silver mining sectors. This is especially true for North and South America, Australia, South Africa and …
Developing Countries Drive Polyisobutylene Market
May 29, 2018
Polyisobutylene (PIB) is an important elastomer that is used to produce tires (more than 70% of global PIB consumption), fuel and lubricant additives (10%), automotive mechanical goods (8%), adhesives and sealants (3%), and other products (6%). These consumption sectors enjoy …
Vertical Integration as a Way to Address Phenol Market Challenges
May 21, 2018
Phenol, produced mainly via the cumene peroxidation process, plays an important role in the chemical and other industries. It is an indispensable building block used in the production of plastics (further processed into automotive parts, mobile phones, etc.), paints, coatings, …
Regional Melamine Markets Exhibit Different Dynamics
April 27, 2018
The wood-based panel industry with its subsectors focused on laminates and adhesive resins is considered the largest outlet for melamine. Both subsectors (i.e. laminates and adhesives) jointly account for over 70% of melamine consumption globally. Melamine: structure of the global …
Sulphuric Acid Demand Rises Amid Tightening Supply
April 18, 2018
Sulfuric acid is one of the most fundamental chemical building blocks, serving as a keystone for many modern industries, branches of economy and chemical products. On a corporate level, wide applicability of sulfuric acid stipulates a multiplicity of market players …
UK to Impose Deposit Return Scheme Aimed at PET Recycling
April 3, 2018
One of the main trends of the global polyethylene terephthalate (PET) market is the increase in PET recycling rates due to environmental concerns caused by the augmented usage of PET products, including drinks bottles and containers. This augmented usage is …
Carbon Black (CB) Supply Reductions in China Impact Indian Tyre Manufacturers
March 27, 2018
Carbon black is used as a rubber-reinforcing agent and performance additive in rubber products (tires, hoses, belts, etc.), coatings, printing inks, extruded profiles, moulded goods, polymer systems and other specialty applications. The latter implies high versatility and contingency of products …
Higher Feedstock Costs Drive Current Polyvinyl Alcohol Prices in the US
March 22, 2018
Polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) is firmly entrenched in the complex commodity chain. This chain includes acetic acid, ethylene, oxygen, vinyl acetate monomer (VAM), polyvinyl acetate and other end-products in a wide range of applications, like paper, adhesive, film, textiles, packaging, construction, …
Global Chlorine Market Is Affected by Anti-Pollution Initiatives of Chinese Government
March 13, 2018
China plays a dominant role in the global chlorine market. The country’s chlorine-manufacturing capacity is over 40 mln tonnes per year; the actual chlorine output is about 30 mln tonnes per year. Chlorine: structure of the global production capacity broken …
Flexibility at the Core of Nitrile-Butadiene Rubber Business
February 21, 2018
Nitrile-butadiene rubber (NBR) comprises a family of synthetic rubber copolymers of acrylonitrile and butadiene. This generic status of NBR means that rubber compounders can flexibly adjust product parameters and properties (processability, oil/fuel resistance, tensile strength, heat ageing, etc.) by experimenting …
China’s Antipollution Measures Affect Maleic Anhydride Market
February 13, 2018
The importance of maleic anhydride as a vital chemical intermediate used in a vast range of products is an undisputed fact. As such, maleic anhydride indispensability for multiple industries and large dependence on Asia for its supply create prerequisites for …
Technological Innovations as Key Success Factor in Highly Competitive Terephthalic Acid (PTA) Market
January 30, 2018
The global and regional markets for purified terephthalic acid (PTA) have always been the arena for fierce competitive struggle. Numerous manufacturing companies with different levels of integration in upstream and downstream sectors constantly compete in the extremely volatile and dynamic …
Recent Styrene Price Surges Will Have Short-Term Effect on Polystyrene Market
January 19, 2018
The global polystyrene market is characterised by high contingency and specificity subject to various dimensions and factors. Its complex dynamics depends on the interplay of different forces. These forces primarily include feedstock styrene monomer (SM) price fluctuations. Another important factor …
Aniline Production Has High Potential for Innovations
January 4, 2018
Aniline is an important chemical compound applicable in a variety of industries, including dye, pharmaceutical, biomedical, rubber and other industries. It is also a vital intermediate in the methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) production, comprising the route consisting from nitrobenzene, aniline, …
Lime Market Presents High Potential for Innovation
December 12, 2017
Lime and its products are versatile commodities with a wide range of application areas, including metallurgy, flue-gas desulfurization (FGD), environment protection, glass & ceramics, paper & cellulose industry, sugar production, refractories, construction, agriculture and others. Globally, the sectorial structure of …
BASF Mulls Over Methane-to-Methanol-to-Propylene Project
November 27, 2017
Methanol remains one of the cornerstones of the modern chemical industry, participating in multiple complex feedback relationships, both upward and downward, along relevant supply chains involving various companies, many of which are vertically integrated. The vivid example of such vertically …
Environmental Concerns as Key Driver of Propylene Oxide Market
November 17, 2017
Propylene oxide (PO) plays important role in numerous chemicals value chains, composed of multiple indispensable upstream and downstream products. As such, fairly large fluidity, dynamicity and volatility of the global and regional PO market are inevitable, driven by a magnitude …
Butadiene Markets Show High Volatility
November 9, 2017
The global and regional markets for butadiene, which is as an important intermediate embedded in various commodity chains (primarily leading to the production of synthetic rubbers, such as styrene butadiene rubber), have been demonstrating significant share of volatility. The current …
China Leads Global Sodium Sulfate Market
October 25, 2017
Sodium sulfate is the sodium salt of sulfuric acid, which is mined from mirabilite at mineral salt deposits (for example, salt lakes). It can also be obtained from by-products of many chemical processes such as hydrochloric acid production. Its applications, …
Perlite and Vermiculate Markets Retain Good Prospects
October 12, 2017
Perlite and vermiculate are naturally occurring minerals which feature a number of useful properties like good insulation, inertness, low density, fire resistance and ecological friendliness. These properties are coupled with general availability of the two minerals, though sufficient information is …
Hitech Catalysis Applications to Drive Zeolites Market
October 5, 2017
Zeolites form a class of aluminosilicate minerals primarily applicable in detergent powders, catalysts (especially in petroleum refining), absorbents, feed additives, soil amendments, water treatment agents, to name only a few. Zeolites are extremely useful as catalysts for several important reactions …
Barite Market Closely Follows Oil Industry Behaviour
September 21, 2017
The main end-use application for barites, which are primary, naturally occurring barium-based minerals, is the oil and gas industry where barites are used as weighting agents in drilling muds: the oil and gas exploration sector accounts for about 75 of …
Current Oversupply Leads to Price Decreases in Ammonia Market
September 15, 2017
Ammonia is one of the most important building blocks of the chemical industry. It is also indispensable in the production of liquid nitric fertilizers such as ammonium nitrate, urea, DAP/MAP or aqua ammonia. As a commercial product and important chemical …