Chlor Alkali industry accounts for roughly 1% of the global chemical industry, with close to US$ 70 billion turnover. Serving as a backbone of the various end use applications, it plays a key role on both the consumer side and B2B applications side, be it textiles, paper, and all other building blocks. In the Indian context, this industry is fast emerging as one of the biggest opportunities or investment and business.

The leading experts discussed the latest trends and future roadmap for Chlor Alkali industry at the eleventh session, ‘Chlor-Alkali: Making a Path for Success’ of NextGen Chemical and Petrochemical Summit 2023 organized in Mumbai by the Indian Chemical News on July 13-14, 2023.   The session was moderated by Pravin Prashant, Editor, Indian Chemical News. 

“India is almost 6% of the global market share and a lot of jump has happened in the last 3 years. This is the one industry that has clocked maximum investment in the last one year. We are talking about the heavy capex cycle in the chemical industry and the chlor alkali industry alone has gone up from close to 3.5 million tonnes in 2014-15 to 6 million tonnes in 2022-23. In short, we have replaced Japan and Germany in global market share. Within the bulk chemicals industry, this in one segment that has clocked the maximum investment and if I take into account the capex announced, we would be touching close to 8 million tonnes which is perhaps the single largest investment in the last 50 years,” said Ankur Singh, Vice President & Head Strategy, Chemicals Business, DCM Shriram.

As an industry we are conscious that our markets are growing in line with our capacity expansion. We are talking about paper, textiles, inorganic chemicals and all other bleaching and disinfectant industries. All of them are into heavy capex and this investment is well timed with how all other consumer industries are growing. There is one big challenge in this industry. As we are aware that we produce chlorine along with caustic soda but India is in a very disadvantageous position because the biggest consumer of chlorine is PVC. India’s share in the PVC downstream is still less than 10% while globally it is 35% and the biggest reason is we don’t have feedstock. Whatever feedstock we need to make PVC which is ethylene is already tied up with Polyethylene. The large refineries, government institutions and PSUs must prioritize the ethylene for this sector as well. The path forward for this industry that has doubled in the last six years includes capacity additions, strengthening export opportunities, chlorine integration for a wider product portfolio, focus on energy efficiency and B2B sales,” added Singh. 

“The global Chlor Alkali industry is about US $66 billion and it is projected to reach around US $78 billion by 2026-27.  Hence, we see a window of opportunity for us to grow close to US 6-7 billion which is the total size of Chlor Alkali business as of now. So the demand is going to increase tremendously. If we see the total demand that is being fulfilled. Earlier we were importing the Chlor Alkali but now we are exporting as well. Now the vision is that APAC will become a strong exporter. The clarity of vision and backup plan is necessary to ensure the success of long term goals,” said Dr Hiten Mehta, Head R& D - Chlor-Alkali, Aditya Birla Chemicals. 

Mostly the mindset is to find the low hanging fruit in terms of generics. “We are good at copying and have been well appreciated globally. But that doesn’t define us. We have the capabilities to come up with novel solutions but we need to have the patience and mindset. We have started thinking positively in this direction and there are ongoing efforts which will give some results in 2-3 years down the line. These will be completely different solutions other than conventional ones.

Though we keep advancing as per market need, in R& D we have to develop second and third generation technologies but that doesn’t happen in Chlor Alkali as like pharma where they have a process development technology team. Making the use of byproducts such as hydrogen from electrolysis. For example, we have started using hydrogen as an energy source for a few activities. Apart from that we need to start building the infrastructure. We have all the ingredients to become a global leader in the industry,” added Dr Mehta.

NextGen Chemical and Petrochemical Summit 2023 themed, ‘Innovation, Self-reliance and Sustainability’ witnessed attendance by a huge number of stakeholders from the chemical and petrochemical industry across India. 

The Summit was supported by the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers and co-partnered by DCM Shriram. The Gold Partners of the event were Premier Tech, Ingenero, Rieco, ABB, PIP, Deepak Nitrite, Dassault Systemes, Moglix and Siemens. Associate Partners were Tata Chemicals, Anupam Rasayan India, Sealmatic, Godavari Biorefineries, Huntsman, Tranter, Source.One, IPCO, and Aeroflex. The Lanyard Partner was Jakson Green.

Industry Association Partners were AMAI, Gujarat Chemical Association, CropLife India, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Manufacturers Association, India and, AgroChem Federation of India.