According to Dr. Phung Ngoc Bo (Vietnam National Chemical Corporation), the chemical technologies are at the low levels compared with those in other countries, therefore the power cost still makes up a large proportion of the total product costs.

To prove this opinion, Mr. Hoang Van Tai, the Director of the Van Dien Fused Magnesium Phosphate Fertilizer Joint Stock Company said that in order to produce phosphate fertilizer, the company had to use blast furnace technique with coke which had low productivity and high operating cost. Despite long working time at that field, the company couldn’t bear the cost of material which led them to close its operations.

For that reason, to reduce the costs and improve the effectiveness of the production line, recently, the company has improved their technologies, replaced the original blast furnace boiler with the new one using anthracite. As a result, it managed to cut one ton of coal as well as to lower their costs of imported raw materials. Besides, the company also made briquettes from lignite. In the past its wastes accounted for 35% while they are recycled at present which helps to reduce the material handling costs from 1.7 tons to 1.1-1.2 tons. Additionally, the changes in technologies also allowed them to reduce the power cost from 45 kWh per ton of products to 40 kWh per ton of product. Thus, it gained a great economic impact.

In order to reduce energy costs and decrease the product prices, businesses in Vietnam National Chemical Corporation have taken a lot of different measures to save energy such as to change technologies and production lines, change the input materials by using anthracite instead of charcoal, replace the amianthus membrane with semi-permeable membrane or to use hydro solvent instead of organic solvent. Those measures brought them high energy efficiency. In particular, to produce a ton of ammonia, Ha Bac nitrogen fertilizer and chemical company was successful in reducing the material cost from 1.408 kg to 1.25o kg, cut down the energy cost from 1.425 kWh to 1.260 kWh, etc.

Being one of the industries using the highest amount of energy, chemical industry must find an effective way to conserve energy and therefore be able to lower their production costs so that they can get through tough economic times in which the power price always change over time.

To enhance the energy savings, the World Bank and the Ministry of Industry and Trade cooperated to launch the project “Cleaner Production and Energy Efficiency” with the budget of USD 4 million. The project will be implemented in the period 2012-2015. The chemical industry is also included in the industries supported by the project.

By Thanh Thao