What Happens When Electricity Is the Raw Material
EIA published August electricity prices on Friday. The US industrial average came in at 9.64 cents, the second-highest month in the series behind July's 9.77, and 44 of 51 reporting areas paid more than they did a year ago. Louisiana is one of the seven that paid less, and across the five states holding Olin's US chlorine plants the power line on a tonne of chlorine moved from minus $4.75 to plus $19.75.
For the five years to 2020, industrial electricity in the United States got cheaper. 6.76 cents a kilowatt-hour in 2016, 6.67 in 2020, and every year in between inside a quarter-cent band.
In July of this year it printed 9.77.
EIA published the August numbers on Friday. The industrial average came in at 9.64 cents, up 7.3% over twelve months, and those two months are now the highest and the second-highest in the monthly state series EIA carries back to January 2010.
Olin's 10-K lists two raw materials against chlorine and caustic soda. Salt, electricity.
"If electricity is the single largest raw material in the ECU, what did this summer do to the cost of a tonne?"
Depends entirely on which state the cell room sits in.
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