US OxyChem starts up HCl plant in New York

Bill Bowen

21-Aug-2014

US OxyChem starts up HCl plant in New YorkHOUSTON (ICIS)–OxyChem on Thursday announced the successful startup of its 163,000 ton/year (148,000 tonnes/year) hydrochloric acid (HCl) production unit in Niagara Falls, New York.

The startup comes as the market is short on material and faces rising prices.

The $49.5m project will use chlorine and hydrogen from the OxyChem’s adjacent Niagara Falls chlor-alkali plant and will also provide acid for OxyChem’s manufacturing operations as well as serve the merchant market in the northeastern region of the US and southeastern Canada.

 OxyChem is a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum.

The plant is among six HCl plants expected to ramp up operations between now and by the end of the first quarter of 2015 that will add an estimated 921,000 wet tons of production capacity to the US and Canadian markets. Wet tons describe a solution that is 35% acid and 65% water, also known as 22-degree Baume.

The addition of their product to the market should end a period of tight supply that has pinched the US market during July and August and sent prices up about $55/ton on an ex works US Gulf basis.

Rising demand from oil and natural gas production activities is said to be driving the demand that has led to the production expansion. While HCl is used for a wide variety of industrial uses that generally track macroeconomic activity and therefore grows about 2% to 3% a year, demand from drilling activity is said to be growing at 8% or more.

The recent price increases have been driven by planned and unplanned plant outages. Production problems at Bayer, DuPont and other plants during the spring and summer and a scheduled turnaround at BASF’s giant complex in Geismar, Louisiana, have dried up a surplus that had driven prices down during the first quarter.

Major US suppliers include BASF, Bayer, Dow Chemical, DuPont Fluorocarbons, OxyChem, Olin and Huntsman.

 

Company

Capacity (tons/yr)

Location

Start up

Production

OxyChem

163,000

Niagara Falls, NY, US

Late August

October

US Magnesium

120,000

Salt Lake City, Utah, US

September

October

Skyonic

194,000

San Antonio, Texas, US

October

December

Erco Worldwide

120,000

Port Edward, Wisconsin, US

Mid-August

September

Erco Worldwide

77,000

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, US

October-November

November

Harris & Ford

250,000

Eddyville, Iowa

January 2015

First quarter 2014

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