World Soda Ash 2015: India's fertiliser policy blocks adoption of Hou process
By Laura Syrett
Published: Wednesday, 30 September 2015
High local energy costs and an industrial concentration of soda ash production in the country's northwest make replacing India's existing Solvay-based capacity with Hou-based facilities a logical step, but according to IHS, a political drive to reduce fertiliser subsidies mean that the ammonium chloride produced as a by-product of the Hou process would be economically unviable.
Interventionist government policy in India
has prevented the country's soda ash industry from adopting the
Hou production process, even though using the Chinese-developed
method would make the sector more competitive.
Speaking at the IHS World Soda Ash Outlook in Barcelona,
Spain, today, Mike Beal, director of chemical consulting at
IHS, said that...