Global Chlor-Alkali & Vinyls Conference

15 – 16 May 2025 · Hilton Barcelona, Spain

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Navigating Out of The Trough:

Charting Different Courses for Recovery

Global chlor-alkali and vinyls markets have been stuck in a demand driven trough since 2023. Depressed trough operating rates and compressed margins have led some to suggest that rationalization in high-cost regions is the answer for a quicker recovery. Exacerbating the challenge is new capacity, justified during the peak margin period following the pandemic, coming online. As central banks begin easing interest rates and inflation retreats, construction activity is showing some signs of recovery, likely driving increased chlorine demand. At the same time, declining energy and manufacturing input costs, coupled with China’s focus on emerging industries, are setting the stage for a near-term recovery in caustic soda demand.

The key question remains: which side of the ECU will lead the recovery in the short and medium term? While the outlook for the chlor-alkali and vinyls sectors is positive, “navigational hazards” remain ahead. Get ready for the Global Chlor-Alkali & Vinyls Conference 2025 to delve into the path to recovery in the chlor-alkali and vinyls markets, exploring different strategies to chart the optimal course for navigating this evolving landscape.

Key topics to be covered include:

  • Is chlor-vinyls oversupply here to stay, or will a demand recovery offset new capacity?
  • Can high-cost regions weather the downcycle, or is rationalization inevitable?
  • How could policy shifts under a new U.S. president reshape the market landscape?
  • Will rising geopolitical tensions disrupt global chlor-vinyls trade flows?
  • What ripple effects could new tariffs have on industry dynamics?
  • How will regional supply and demand (im)balances for caustic soda versus vinyls impact ECU margins?

GCAV by the Numbers

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GCAV 2025 Featured Speakers

Paul Leclair

Paul Leclair Vice President and Co-Founder Numera Analytics

Paul Leclair is a pulp and paper market expert with 25 years of experience in the industry. As Vice President and co-founder of Numera Analytics, Paul oversees the operations of Numera’s sectoral and custom research services, which cover the entire range of pulp and paper products, including market pulp, specialty pulps, graphic papers, packaging grades, tissue, hygiene products and recycled fibres. Paul holds a Masters degree in Economics from the École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC).

David McCoy

David McCoy Executive Chairman TZMI

David McCoy is the Executive Chairman of TZMI, a globally recognized consulting firm that supports the world’s opaque minerals and metals industries, particularly in the titanium value chain. David has worked for clients in over 70 countries.

He is a Chartered Professional Engineer (Chemical Engineering) and has a Master of Engineering Management (International Finance major) and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Brian Newsome

Brian Newsome Vice President, Global Chlor-alkali Advisory Service Lead Chemical Market Analytics

Brian Newsome is the Vice President of the Global Chlor-alkali advisory service at Chemical Market Analytics (CMA)

Prior to joining CMA, Brian served in several roles at Westlake Corporation, including as Director of Strategy, Business Manager for Chlorine and Chlorine Derivatives, and Market Manager for Calcium Hypochlorite. He has also previously worked in commercial and technical roles for Kureha Corporation (Japan), Motorola Semiconductor and ExxonMobil LNG. Brian has over 17 years of chemical industry experience including over 13 years of global chlor-alkali and vinyl’s industries experience in marketing, sales and business line management roles. He received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin as well as a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

Humberto J. Rocha

Humberto J. Rocha Carbon and Biodiversity Editor OPIS a Dow Jones Company

Humberto J. Rocha is a Carbon and Biodiversity Editor based in London, focusing on the carbon compliance markets in the European Union and the United Kingdom and the growing voluntary biodiversity credit market. A journalist with nearly a decade of experience, Humberto primarily focuses on covering the dynamics of the compliance carbon markets in Europe. He covers daily and weekly price assessments, conducts webinars and writes features ranging from the gulf between the U.K. and EU carbon prices and the potential linkage between these two carbon markets. Additionally, he covers policy developments and pricing trends in the voluntary biodiversity credit market from projects around the world.

Humberto joined OPIS in the summer of 2022 after covering energy policy and federal and state legal cases in the United States for Law360 at the news agency’s Houston and London offices. He has also worked in international outlets including Japan’s The Yomiuri Shimbun, local news at Hearst Connecticut Media, and Forbes. Humberto speaks fluent Spanish and French and has a bachelor’s degree in Social Studies with a focus on Latin America from Harvard University and a master’s degree in Latin American studies from the University of Oxford.

Vladimir Sedivy

Vladimir Sedivy President Salt Partners Ltd.

Vladimir M. Sedivy received his MSc degree in chemical engineering (with honours) at the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague and a PED diploma at the Institute of Management Development in Lausanne. He built petrochemical plants with Badger in London and evaporation plants with Sulzer Escher Wyss in Zurich. His interest in salt started in 1973 when he became a manager of salt projects in Africa and South America. He invented the HYDROSAL salt purification process with hydroextraction of impurities in 1978. As a Director of Krebs Swiss, he acquired and implemented many salt and chloralkali projects in Europe, America, Africa, Middle East and India, including turnkey contracts for leading chemical and food companies.

In 2003, Vladimir M. Sedivy established Salt Partners. Under his management, Salt Partners carried out consultancy assignments for Governments, Banks and global corporations and built SOLARSAL and HYDROSAL salt production and processing plants worldwide. Vladimir M. Sedivy is a Member of the Board of several companies. He published many articles and presented papers at international conferences.

Vladimir M. Sedivy is married and lives in Switzerland. His son Claudio and daughter Isabella are Directors of Salt Partners. Both are biologists holding PhD and MSc degrees (with honours) from the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

Raheel Shafi

Raheel Shafi Vice President, Europe, Middle East and APAC Consulting Team Lead Chemical Market Analytics

Raheel serves as the Vice President for Global Consulting at Chemical Market Analytics.

Raheel has over 25 years of experience working in the downstream and petrochemicals sectors. During this time, he has held numerous technical and commercial positions in operating companies and, more recently, within consulting, where he has spent the last 11 years.

His background spans refining and petrochemical process technologies, product markets, and operations, enabling him to provide astute and valued advisory services across the refinery petrochemical interface and beyond crude to chemicals.

He has provided advisory services over the entire petrochemical asset lifecycle from concept and feasibility study of grassroots complexes at major national master plan level as well as for NOCs and consortia. Similarly, he has completed numerous brownfield technical and commercial advisory projects looking at new value chains, increased business agility and increasing overall plant capacity for a wide variety of clients.

He has also supported both greenfield and brownfield projects through the project finance stage, providing services to lenders and ECAs. From an organic growth perspective, he has developed strategies around future business direction supporting divestments relating to the sale of assets and growth through sell-side due diligence from both a technical and commercial advisory perspective. Specifically, Raheel has supported more than 75 billion dollars in transactions in the petrochemical space.

 

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