Resumen de Soda ash: : Year in Review 2015

Industrial Minerals

• In Europe, falling soda ash demand, particularly from the CIS region, left the continent in a situation of oversupply, despite significant cuts to production capacity. On a volume basis, figures from IHS show that Western Europe led the decline in 2014-2015, with weaker glass and chemicals markets forcing a demand drop of 900,000 tpa soda ash on pre-recession levels. This was followed by the CIS, where demand had fallen by 450,000 tonnes since 2008 and finally Central Europe, which saw consumption contract by a relatively modest 30,000 tonnes on the same comparison.

  In the US, domestic demand for soda ash in 2015 was still around 800,000 tonnes below pre-recession levels, according to IHS, thanks largely to its declining glass market. South America remains a healthy market for soda ash, meanwhile, with 2.6m tonnes of the material estimated to be consumed in 2015, in a region that has just 250,000 tonnes of local capacity.

  Planned capacity increases from Ciner Group, whose slated 3m tpa additional output by 2018 will make it the second largest soda ash producer in the world (at 4.478m tpa), after Belgium's Solvay SA (which is expected to have a nameplate capacity to produce 7.45m tpa soda ash in 2018), could upset the industry's supply balance in the short term.