CHEMICALS

Vessa is a provider of specialty and commodity chemicals for the cosmetics, personal care, adhesives and sealants, paints and coatings, soaps and detergents, homecare, leather and textiles, automotive, agriculture, pulp and paper, construction, metalworking, electronics and many other industries in Turkey.

The chemical industry creates an immense variety of products which impinge on virtually every aspect of our lives. The industry uses a wide range of raw materials, from air and minerals to oil. Outputs range widely, with speciality chemicals produced in modest kilogramme quantities but with very high value, and commodity chemicals produced in huge quantities (millions of tonnes). With increasing competition worldwide, innovation remains crucial in finding new ways for the industry to satisfy its increasingly sophisticated, demanding and environmentally conscious consumers.

Speciality chemicals category covers a wide variety of chemicals for crop protection, paints and inks, colorants (dyes and pigments) and for lots of other applications and industries. It includes chemicals used by industries as diverse as textiles, paper or engineering. Specialty chemicals are typically produced in smaller volumes and are, in many cases, proprietary formulations that customers use in specific applications. An example is household paints which have evolved from being organic solvent-based to being water-based. Another is the latest ink developed for ink-jet printers.

Commodity chemicals are produced (and consumed) in bulk, with relatively transparent pricing and minimal variation among suppliers. Commodity chemicals, which are mostly basic chemicals, are divided into petrochemicals, polymers and basic inorganics. Commodity chemicals, produced in large quantities, are mainly sold within the chemical industry and to other industries before becoming products for the general consumer. The term “petrochemical” can be misleading as the same chemicals are increasingly being derived from sources other than oil, such as coal and biomass. An example is methanol, commonly produced from oil and natural gas in the US and Europe, but from coal in China. Another is polyethylene, derived from oil and gas in the US and Europe, but increasingly from biomass in Brazil. Basic inorganics are relatively low cost chemicals used throughout manufacturing and agriculture. They are produced in very large amounts, some in millions of tonnes a year, and include chlorine, sodium hydroxide, sulfuric and nitric acids, chemicals for fertilizers and many others.