Next year sales of treatment chemicals for water and wastewater applications will rise by $1 billion to $24.7 billion. This forecast is in constant 2010 dollars. When inflation since 2010 is taken into account, the market at actual 2013 prices will be $27 billion.

Asia will account for the majority of the increase. This is due to expansion of power generation, municipal wastewater treatment and municipal water treatment in Asia. The power industry in Asia will spend $2.4 billion for treatment chemicals. In 2013, China, India, Vietnam and other developing Asian countries are greatly increasing their coal generation capacity.

A unique segment of the Asian power market is the cleanup of the Fukishima power plant. This one plant will account for 4 percent of all the purchases of treatment chemicals by the Asian power industry in 2013.

Due to the poor quality of source water, the chemical requirements to purify drinking water in Asia are higher than in other areas. Due to the water shortages, there are increasing quantities of treatment chemicals utilized to purify municipal and industrial wastewater for re-use.
China will be increasing expenditures for chemicals used in conjunction with desalination. By contrast the Middle East will not see the double-digit growth next year which it has experienced in the past.

Picture: McIlvaine Company