Shipping rates mean salt is no longer a regional business.Asian chemical producers will continue increasing their demand for high-purity salt to 2028 and the largest salt producers are positioning themselves to supply this, taking advantage of historically low rates to ship salt across the world. The new IMO2020 regulations are likely to have an impact on trade next year and the new Roskill report reviews salt trade in detail.
London, U.K, Nov. 14, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Roskill is about to release its new salt market report with forecasts to 2028. It is essential reading for anyone needing a comprehensive overview of this evolving industry.
Roskill has reviewed the production plans of more than 300 salt production assets worldwide during the research for its 2019 report. Germany's K+S has retained its position as the largest salt producer in the world.
A review of projects includes Australian solar salt projects including progress by K+S at Ashburton, BCI Minerals at Mardie and Leichardt Industrials at Eramurra (and more recently Mount Salt). Hub-Pak of Pakistan also recently announced plans to start construction of a world scale solar salt project in 2020.
The world market for salt, which is used to produce chlorine, caustic soda and a wide range of other important chemicals, is forecast to grow fastest in Asia. This means that by 2028, Asia is expected to account for >50% of global trade in salt, up from <45% in 2013. China's chemical plants have been a key driver of this growth.
Chloralkali production is the largest end-use for salt. Chlorine is the raw material for the production of numerous organic chlorine compounds, the most important of which in terms of volume is ethylene dichloride, a chemical precursor to the 45Mtpy commodity polymer, PVC. Caustic soda also has a very wide range of end-uses including alumina manufacture, pulp and paper production, and chemical processing. Synthetic soda ash production is the next largest end-use for salt, and this in turn is mainly consumed in glass applications.
Another major market for salt and the major reason for cross Atlantic trade is road de-icing. In 2019, the USA remained by far the largest destination for salt shipments followed by China and Japan. Chile remained the main supplier to the USA in H1 2019, supplying an estimated 3Mt.
Roskill's Salt 2020 conference May 2020, Toronto, Canada explores the opportunities in a new era for the salt industry
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