Extrusion International USA 4-2021

53 Extrusion International 4/2021 Emery Oleochemicals’ lubricants suitable for various PVC applications Emery Oleochemicals GmbH Paul-Thomas-Straße 56, 40599 Düsseldorf, Germany greenpolymeradditives.emeryoleo.com/ /additives has decreased by almost 50%; in- dicating castor’s reduction in avail- ability. The green dotted line in the diagram represents the production solely in India where the vast ma- jority of the world’s castor oil seed comes from. As a consequence, the Indian mar- ket share (blue line) increased to 85 to 90% in the last several years. Therefore, a shrinking world cas- tor oil seed market is highly de- pendent on the Indian harvest and supply. Challenges in Global Logistics The shortages of raw materials caused by the March 2021 block- age of the Suez Canal demonstrat- ed that such quasi-single sourcing can lead to serious supply issues and can bring entire production chains to a standstill on short- term notice. Extreme increases of freight rates and COVID-19 related obstacles in logistics, as observed in 2021, lead to a sig- nificant level of uncertainty in the security of supply. Viable Alternatives to Castor-based Products Emery Oleochemicals has devel- oped suitable alternatives to cas- tor-based lubricants. The compa- ny’s natural-based alternative PVC lubricants mimic the performance of HCO or 12-HSA but are inde- pendent from castor as feedstock. Emery’s products aremanufactured from raw materials produced in all major regions avoiding long and sensitive transportation routes. Emery Oleochemicals’ offers a broad portfolio of internal lubri- cants that are viable substitutes for HCO and that can meet a variety of application requirements. As an al- ternative to 12-HSA, Emery’s new product innovation called LOXIOL ® G 19 can be utilized to replace the castor-based product. Alternatives are also available from Emery that comply with FDA and EU 10/2011 regulations for indirect food con- tact. Figure 1: World’s and India’s castor oil seed production in the last 15 years from 2005 to 2019 [data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, http://www.fao.org/ faostat/en/#data/QC/visualize] 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Production World [1,000 MT] Production India [1,000 MT] Indian share [%]