The company's capacities are all for liquid material, except at its Lake Charles site, which has a nameplate of about 36,000 tons of liquid and 120,000 tons of dry material. The company brought a new liquid calcium chloride plant on stream at Parkersburg in the second half of 1998, using byproduct HCl from DuPont's fluoromonomer facility as raw material. Tetra markets the material made by Vulcan, which started commercial production of calcium chloride at Wichita, Kans., in 1993. Weyerhaeuser's Longview chloralkali plant is scheduled to close at the end of the first quarter this year. It is unlikely that calcium chloride production will continue, but that decision has not yet been made.
Several companies produce small amounts of reagent and USP grades.
Imports are in a range of 250,000 to 300,000 short tons, gross weight, and are primarily from Canada. Most of the industry's pent up inventory is believed to have moved into the market during the past month. Calcium chloride has gained increased recognition as a superior deicing product, and highway mixtures with sodium chloride may be less corrosive than the use of salt alone. Dry summers and a continued high level of construction activity have resulted in steady demand for liquids for dust control. Rising costs and price pressure from cheaper, less effective substitutes have weakened the price of liquids, especially in summer markets such as dust control.