Road Clears for Calcium Chlori

             Calcium chloride is used for such things as dust control, road deicing, and to assist in oil
             and gas drilling. It is easily manufactured for a variety of sources; underground brines in
             Michigan, a by-product of hydrochloric acid streams, and soda ash can harbor calcium
             chloride. For years the market was supplied by three major manufactures- Dow Chemical,
             General Chemical, and Tetra Technologies- all of which produce such a high-volume that
             it creates oversupply and poor prices. These companies already produced roughly 1.5
             million tons per year and out of that only about 1 million tons are used. In 1995, Ambar
             Incorporated decided that they were going to enter the calcium chloride market. They
             spent over $60 million on supplies and opened behind schedule in 1997. Then North
             America experienced the warm and low precipitation winters in 1999 and 2000, there was
             an incredibly low demand for calcium chloride and the company failed. The loss has not
             been felt by the other companies yet, for the production level this year was low. There
             have also been cutbacks which are reducing the amount of calcium chloride produced
             from hydrochloric acid. This is not good for the makers of calcium chloride, for higher
             prices would hurt the amount they can put into their feedstock. Also Shell Chemicals
             which supplies Tetra with their by-product stream is working on making that stream more
             acidic so it can be sold more as acid, a market where there is more money available. Tetra
             is still negotiating to stay on the site, but are not worried for their other facilities could
             support the needed output. General Chemical, bases their calcium chloride operation in
             the largest facility in North America, there they coproduce soda ash and calcium chloride.
             Although many facilities used to dot across North America, when natural soda ash was
             found in the 1940's in Wyoming the price was so low that competitors ...

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Road Clears for Calcium Chlori. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 21:37, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/35854.html