Hydrogen peroxide prices in India to Escalate by 4-5% Under Strict Government Surveillance on Pollution Control

After gaining long-sought stability in the price trends during early January, the Hydrogen Peroxide market may again become a victim of woes from surged input costs causing the prices to escalate yet again in the next month. According to the ChemAnlayst database, the last assessed prices for hydrogen peroxide in the country hovered around USD 540/MT.

The concerns among the market participants over the plausible increase in the manufacturing costs are linked to the renewed strictness in the Indian government’s surveillance over the manufacturing units. Hydrogen peroxide, which is typically prepared from the anthraquinone process is an energy-intensive process and is responsible for giving out large amounts of carbon emissions. With the government’s increasing interventions in the chemical production mandates, the manufacturers might have to curtail production rates or switch over to state-of-the-art technologies to limit energy usage and carbon emissions from the production plants, a move which is expected to weigh heavily on the manufacturing costs. “The manufacturing costs will go sky-high with more stringency in pollution laws by the government, we have no choice but to make price revisions to save a decent margin” – revealed a supplier from Meghmani Finechem Ltd, a leading hydrogen peroxide manufacturer and supplier in India, having a 60,000 MTPA capacity production unit at Dahej, Bharuch.

Hydrogen Peroxide due to its strong oxidizing properties finds huge usage in paper & pulp bleaching, textile bleaching, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics industry, water treatment, and metallurgical industry. Though hydrogen peroxide is a commonly used chemical in India’s end-user sectors mentioned above, the country’s annual output is not sufficient enough to fulfill the downstream demand, and the gap in the hydrogen supply fundamentals is filled by heavy imports.

As per ChemAnalyst, though the abidance to the government’s laws will boost environment protection, the transition may bother the chemical manufacturers and the downstream buyers for a brief period. The ongoing scenario has set the stage for shocks in hydrogen peroxide prices in India which may see a rise of 4-5% in early February. The high demand from the end-user industries is expected to encourage the downstream buyers to procure hydrogen peroxide stocks even at premium prices. A squeeze in the gap between the domestically produced and imported hydrogen peroxide batch prices may be observed in future.