2. *Trademark of The Dow Chemical Companywww.dowcanada.com
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After100years
ofsweatingthesmallstuff,yourealizethereisnosmallstuff.
Food. Shelter. Clothing. Transportation. Medicine. When you’re dealing with the essentials of life, no
detail is too small. And the ramifications of just about everything can be rather big. That’s why, on 5 continents, in
over 60 countries, the people of Dow continually push their mastery of science and technology. A mastery that
has, at last count, produced over 59,000 patents and, more important, found its way into millions of products and
services — improving them in ways big. And not so small.
3. From its early and rapid growth in the 1960s, the Canadian chemical industry has come a long way to solidify
its position as a mainstay of the national economy. This special report looks at the road it has travelled and
challenges that lie ahead.
C A N A D A ’ S C H E M I C A L P R O D U C E R S 3
Climate change is a hot topic, but the
Canadian chemical industry has had it
on the front burner for more than a decade.
The Canadian Chemical Producers’ Association
(CCPA), whose member companies produce
more than 90% of industrial chemicals man-
ufactured in Canada, urged its members to
take up the challenge of reducing greenhouse
gas emissions in 1994, three years before the
Kyoto accord was formulated. And CCPA
had started tracking these emissions even
further back – in 1992.
“There was already a recognized need that
we had to do something after the 1992 Rio
Earth Summit,” recalls David Podruzny, CCPA’s
vice-president of business and economics.
“Consistent with our Responsible Care ethic,
we felt that we were going to have to head
down this road, and that the sooner we did,
the better it would be for all concerned.”
The chemical sector encompasses a diverse
industry that produces organic and inorganic
chemicals, plastics and synthetic resins. For
Canada’s chemical industry, energy is a signi-
ficant cost of doing business, and companies
have worked for many years to improve the
energy efficiency of their operations. And a
long-term improvement in energy efficiency
has brought an associated reduction in
greenhouse gas emissions.
Those reductions have occurred concurrently
with industry growth. The chemical sector’s
product output has increased nearly 26% since
1992, but total carbon-dioxide emissions by
CCPA members from 1992 to 2003 increased
by only 0.7%. In terms of global warming
potential, CCPA member companies’ green-
house gas emissions in 2003 decreased by
41% compared to 1992 amounts (measured
in million tonnes carbon-dioxide equivalent).
Some individual corporate performances stand
out. Imperial Oil, for instance, has invested
$14.5 million in capital projects to increase
energy efficiency at its refinery/chemical
operations since an energy study was carried out
in 2000, with another $45 million committed.
ERCO Worldwide has reduced fossil-fuel
consumption by more than 94% at its facility
in Buckingham, Que., through an innovative
plan to turn waste hydrogen into fuel for its
steam plant.
Methanex has established a mechanism that
treats its greenhouse gas emissions globally,
rather than on a national basis. It developed
an internal greenhouse gas emissions trading
regime, just to track their emissions and
reductions, and applied a value to the carbon
to determine what it would be paying or
reaping if it were selling and buying credits.
For more than a decade, NOVA Chemicals’
Furnace Optimization Team worked to develop
and perfect the ANK400 high-temperature
alloy furnace tube coating. It reduces green-
house gas emissions by reducing the frequency
of the decoking process. The innovative coating
inhibits the formation of catalytic coke within
ethylene furnaces, enabling longer, more
efficient furnace run times of more than 400
days – a significant improvement over the
previous 30-to-40-day run times.
An Industry With a Mission:
Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Energy and Feedstocks:
Caught in a Bind
The North American petrochemical indus-
try relies heavily on natural gas – specif-
ically, the liquid natural gas component
ethane – not just as an energy source but
also as its primary feedstock. But natural gas is
at least 40% to 50% more expensive in North
America than in the rest of the world, and not
enough of the valuable ethane is stripped
out of the gas before it exits the country.
Caught in the crunch between growing
demand, unstable supply and consequent
high prices, industry leaders say it’s time for
government leaders to step up with a coherent
energy policy that will save their industry.
Ramesh Ramachandran, president of Dow
Canada, says chemical plants are closing and
new investment is being driven offshore in a
quest for reliable energy feedstocks. “When
you couple the uncertain supply of ethane with
the dramatic increase in the price of natural
gas, Canada’s ability to compete on a global
level has been seriously compromised,” he
says. “From a global standpoint, it’s hard to
come up with a rationale for large-scale capital
investment unless we see major changes.”
Many of his colleagues in Canada’s manu-
facturing sector who use natural gas as a source
of energy agree. In a survey of 72 companies
representing $71 billion in output, 28% of
respondents said that high energy costs will
cause output to decline either “significantly”
or “somewhat”. Higher energy costs have
already led more than a third of respondents
to either move investment out of Canada
(12%) or to actively consider it (24%).
High prices are already causing plants to
operate at less than full capacity. Between
2000 and 2004, consumption of natural gas
actually declined 6.75% while prices rose 24%.
“The question we should be asking ourselves
is how do we ensure that energy resources
are used in the best possible way,” says Val
Mirosh, vice-president of NOVA Chemicals.
“We should be trying to upgrade the value of
natural resources in Canada as much as we can.”
Ramachandran points out that there’s
plenty of worldwide demand to justify
increased petrochemical investment – just
not in North America. He says 120 chemical
plants, each worth $1 billion-plus, are under
construction around the world – but only one
in North America. Yet Alberta is exporting its
natural gas without extracting nearly half of
cont’d on p.6
4. Shell Chemicals
Happy 20th
Responsible Care
®
Responsible Care is a Canadian-made
ethic which sets standards for chemical
industry operations and public dialogue.
Because continuous improvement is at the
heart of Responsible Care, two decades is
indeed something we can all celebrate.
shell.com/chemicals
Proud participant in:
5. C A N A D A ’ S C H E M I C A L P R O D U C E R S 5
Federal and provincial energy policies for
years have promoted natural gas as the
clean-burning fuel – the superior choice for
residential and industrial heat and as fuel for
electricity generating plants.
Canadian chemical producers are wondering
whether the country is figuratively paving the
streets in gold and ignoring cheaper alterna-
tives. Natural gas is a key raw material for their
value-added processes. But chemical industry
leaders say excessive demand has made natural
gas so expensive, driving electricity prices
higher along with it, that it undermines their
ability to compete internationally.
The over-reliance developed through decades
when natural gas was plentiful and inexpensive.
Now, burning natural gas for fuel at US$14
per mcf seems extravagant when you consider
that the rate ranged around US$2 or US$3 in
the early 2000s. The Geological Survey of
Canada calculates that natural gas produces
heat at a cost of US$9.52 per gigajoule versus
only US$0.42 to US$2.17 per gigajoule for
coal. Oil-fired heat costs US$9.69.
Richard Paton, president of the Canadian
Chemical Producers’ Association, is asking
governments to consider the value-added
uses of natural gas. “If you use that natural
gas to make chlorine, sodium chlorate and
polyethylene, you end up with 40 times the
value that you began with,” he says. “That’s
40 times the value that Canada can get out
of that product.”
Paton says energy policymakers have failed
to recognize chemical producers as value-
added industries. “Governments see chemicals
as ‘old economy’,” he says. “But the fact is
that we transform natural resources into
products through chemistry.”
In doing so, chemical producers contribute
about $47 billion a year to the Canadian
economy, converting natural energy resources
into many of the components and materials
for the auto, clothing, fertilizer, food and
pharmaceutical industries. That activity
represents about 9.5% of the value-added
manufacturing sector, according to Canadian
Manufacturers and Exporters figures,
approaching the auto industry’s 14%.
But high natural gas prices and closely related
electricity prices are threatening the chemical
industry’s place in the Canadian industrial
fabric, Paton says. Closures during the summer
of the Canexus plant in Amherstburg, Ont., a
Methenex plant in Kitimat, B.C., and ERCO
Worldwide in Thunder Bay, Ont., were all
attributed to North American natural gas prices.
“We are a resource-rich nation,” says Paton,
“but we find ourselves in a position where
the key resource of natural gas has become
too expensive to use. The same is happening
with electricity, which is the means by which
we transform products such as sodium
chlorate.”
Why do North American prices make
producers here uncompetitive? Because those
prices are not reflected elsewhere. Natural
gas is not widely traded internationally due
to the difficulty in transporting it. And other
countries have not broadly adopted natural
gas for heating, electricity-generation fuel or
for their chemical industries. While North
American chemical manufacturers use natural
gas as the base for 70% of their upgrading
production, producers in China, Japan and
Europe use oil for 70% of their production.
Oil, of course, is globally priced.
Chemical producers would like to see
governments promote more balance in energy
sources and a lessening of dependence on
Burn or Build? Getting the
Most from Natural Resources
Governments see
chemicals as ‘old
economy’. But the fact is
that we transform natural
resources into products
through chemistry.
7. C A N A D A ’ S C H E M I C A L P R O D U C E R S 7
Simply put, Responsible Care began as the
desire for an industry to assume stewardship
of its products, the result of the strong leader-
ship of chemical companies that recognized
the industry had to make an unprecedented leap
forward to adopt a different ethic in working
with communities, governments and society.
Responsible Care was conceived as a creative
response to challenges faced by Canada’s
chemical industry. Now, chemical industries in
over fifty countries have adopted the Responsible
Care formula.
The seeds of Responsible Care were sown
well before India’s deadly Bhopal gas leak in
1984. In 1977, the board of directors of the
Canadian Chemical Producers’ Association
(CCPA) approved the formation of an ad-hoc
group to draft a policy paper on managing
hazardous chemicals. CCPA’s directors endorsed
a set of guiding principles in May 1978.
Shortly after the unthinkable happened
at Bhopal, CCPA’s board concluded that
companies needed to review their operational
procedures to identify potential weaknesses.
Several companies had already begun this
process, but the call went out for uniform
action across the membership.
Meanwhile, political dynamics were
threatening the chemical-producing sector
with a legislative onslaught, fully supported
by a frightened public. Senior government
officials let industry leaders know that chem-
ical producers were bound to face unprece-
dented regulation without significant action.
Something had to be done, and be seen to
be done.
To that end, the board invited pollster Allan
Gregg (then head of Decima Research) to
gather data on public perceptions of the
Canadian chemical industry. The national survey
results discovered the most challenging and
difficult public attitudes that Decima had ever
measured relative to any industry. The perceived
level of risk from the chemical industry was
second only to that of the nuclear industry.
This volatile political atmosphere sustained
the momentum of the industry’s adoption of
Responsible Care, and industry codes of con-
duct gained approval in November 1988. The
codes that were so painstakingly developed
did not contain static requirements; instead,
they required continuous performance improve-
ment. Today, there are those who claim that
Canada’s chemical industry really didn’t know
what it was getting into with Responsible Care.
Had the ethic been presented to CCPA’s
membership in its present-day form, it may
never have happened.
Responsible Care represented a shift from
a legalistic to an ethical way of thinking. The
toughest part for members was that, for the
first time, they took the step of subjecting
themselves to scrutiny by outsiders, including
community activists. They were no longer
entitled to maintain secrecy about their internal
operations, but would have to report to CCPA
on vital matters.
With that action, a fundamental change in
corporate culture had definitely occurred —
and it continues to this very day.
A Brief History of
Responsible Care
CHEMICAL
Responsible Care®
Beyond what’s required.
ISO 9000/14000
A grant from Imperial helped a wetlands society in Bonnyville, Alta., build a 10 kilometer
walking trail and viewing stands where hikers can take a break while reading about the flora
and fauna of the surrounding wetlands.
When we manufacture and sell our products, we work to avoid
upsetting that balance. It’s part of the Responsible Care Program. It
includes our commitment to develop products that minimize risk to
people and to educate them on their use. Energy and petrochemicals
are essential to economic growth; however their production and
consumption need not conflict with protecting health and safety or with
safeguarding the environment.
*Trademarks of Imperial Oil Limited. Imperial Oil, licensee. ®
Trademark of the Canadian Chemical Producers’ Association. Used under license by Imperial Oil.
Life is a delicate balance…
8. SODIUM CHLORATE SODIUM HYDROXIDE CHLORINE HYDROCHLORIC ACID
GROW TH THAT ’S FIRMLY ROOTED IN EXPERIENCE.
You knew us as Nexen Chemicals, a division
of Nexen Inc.
Now we are Canexus.
Although our name has changed, we haven’t.We are the
same chemicals company with six plants across North America
and South America, and more than 400 employees.
We are proud of our outstanding record in health, safety,
and environmental performance.We continue to be active
members of the Canadian Chemicals Producers Association
and strong supporters of Responsible Care®. We carry with
us the same standards and values that have made Nexen
Inc. a Top 50 Employer for three years in a row.
Canexus is headquartered in Calgary, AB and manufactures
and markets inorganic chemicals including sodium chlorate,
chlorine, caustic soda and hydrochloric acid. Canexus is one
of the world’s largest producers of sodium chlorate, used as
an environmentally-preferred bleaching agent in the pulp
and paper industry; and also produce chlor-alkali products
for a variety of market applications.
We are aggressively growing existing facilities as well as
pursuing new international opportunities in South America
and Asia. As part of our business growth and leadership
succession plans, we are seeking to hire a number of
seasoned individuals with experience in the chemicals
industry for a variety of positions.
To learn more about us and these opportunities please
visit our web site.
www.canexus.ca
TSX: CUS.UN