Soda Ash Market - Forecast (2020 - 2025)

Soda ash, also known as sodium carbonate or limestone, is an essential raw material used for the manufacturing of glass, chemicals, detergents, and various other industrial products. The glass industry is gaining strong traction across emerging economies on the back rapid construction across urban parts. Additionally, the chemicals and detergents industries are doing fairly well as well owing to increasing disposable income, which has incremented the sales of washing machines and mushroomed laundry services.

Another major factors boosting the global soda ash market is the technological advancements in terms of extraction processes, namely room and pillar mining technique. Soda ash is extracted from trona and sodium carbonate decahydrate. The world’s largest deposit of trona is in the Green river basin of Wyoming where 47 billion tons of soda ash can be recovered from 56 billion tons of bedded trona. Underground room and pillar mining, using conventional and continues mining techniques is the primary method for extracting trona. As compared to solution mining technique where only 30% soda ash could be obtained, the room and pillar mining technique can obtain an average of 45% soda ash.

Global Soda Ash Market Outlook Through to 2025

According to this business intelligence report by the publisher, the global soda ash market was worth $16,545 million as of 2018, and its value will continue to growing with a CAGR of 3.4% during the forecast period of 2019 to 2025. Based on the market research, it is concluded that soda ash finds its major application in the glass manufacturing industry for the production of glasses mainly for automotive and construction industries. The segment currently holds the largest market share and is estimated to experience growth at a CAGR of 3.4% during the forecast period.

Flourishing Flat Glass Market Opening New Revenue Avenues in Soda Ash Market

Dense soda ash, light soda ash, and baking soda are the three primary grades of soda ash available in the market with similar chemical characteristics but varying physical traits. Light soda is a fundamental alkali chemical used for aluminum cleaning, dying, and water softening. Dense soda ash is used in glass manufacturing including flat glass, container glass, plate glass, automotive glass, and curtain wall glass. The publisher projects healthy growth in the global flat glass market, which is expected to reflect positively over the soda ash market too.

Baking soda is manufactured from light soda ash, which is used in poultry for animal feed, leather tanning, fire extinguishers, vegetable cleaning processes, blasting of metals, production of chemicals, oral care products, deodorizers, and personal care products. Over the past few years, the soda ash market is growing progressively driven by its various applications. Sodium carbonate heptahydrate is extensively used by the brick industry as a dampening agent to decrease the amount of water needed to extrude the clay. Due to its properties such as high melting point, stable but hygroscopic solid, soda ash are highly favorable in industrial manufacturing.

Soda ash is also mined out from alkaline lakes including the Lake Magadi by the dredging process. It is also self-regenerating so it will never exhaust from nature, which is a bankable factor for the growth of the soda ash market.  The demand for container glass is increasing in pharmaceutical packaging and food & beverages industry owing to their ability to preserve the content. On the back of rising environmental concerns, soda ash is used for refining the alkalinity of lakes that are affected by acid rain. Moreover, it helps to reduce the acid presence during the emission from power plants. Emerging urbanization and rapid growth in industrialization is increasing building constructions. Consequently, the demand for glass applications is boosting the growth of the soda ash market.

 Soda Ash Market

Global Soda Ash Market: Regional Analysis

Asia-Pacific will witness significant growth in the soda ash market with the market share rising to more than 50% during the forecast period. The Asia Pacific soda ash market is flourishing due to increased production of glass, detergents as well as other chemicals, and prosperity of emerging economies such as China, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and others.

Global Soda Ash Market Companies and Competitive Landscape

Nirma Limited is the fourth largest producer of soda ash with an investment of $1.6 billion. Nirma is known for owing the only soda ash plant in the world equipped with DCS controls. Soda ash is the main material for the manufacturing of detergents.

Tata Chemicals Limited is one of the leading key player with a total capacity of around 5.5 million tonnes of soda ash per annum. Tata introduced de-bottlenecking of Mithapur facility that will enhance its soda ash capacity by about 150,000 metric ton with upgrade turbines for higher efficiency that will reduce carbon footprint to support plant sustainability.

OCI Wyoming supplies 90% soda ash to Asia, Europe, Africa and North America, and have the largest deposit of trona in the world.

GHCL limited is India’s leading producer with an annual production capacity of 975 Thousand MTPA.

Some of the other prominent players are Solvay SA, FMC Corporation, Ciech SA, Oriental Chemical Industries, and Soda Sanayii.

Key Soda Ash Market Challenge:

The naturally forming soda ash is mined from an ore called trona. Excess use of trona can bound the manufacturing opportunities of soda ash which is one of the major challenges for the market. Exhaustion of natural resources in earth distresses the mineral ores. As trona ore get depleted continuously, it can affect the manufacturing process that can cause a reduction of soda ash and thus causing a rise in price for the process.

Soda ash is a white powder that can be obtained by mining or Solvay process. Increasing demand for household detergents is driving the growth of the soda ash market. Soda ash is used for numerous applications in different sectors such as manufacturing of glasses, animal feeder, paper and pulp, and personal care products. Manufactures are enhancing mining techniques to increase mining recovery. The Asia Pacific is dominating the region with a high demand for glasses emerging from the construction and automotive sectors.