Published September 2023
Vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) is an important chemical intermediate, exclusively used to produce polyvinyl chloride (PVC) resins. The balanced process for making VCM, elegantly integrates the exothermic steps of ethylene chlorination and oxychlorination with the endothermic cracking of ethylene dichloride (EDC), while completely recycling the byproduct hydrogen chloride (HCl). This Process Economics Program (PEP) review provides an update on the balanced process since it was last examined in PEP Report RP5D Vinyl Chloride (March 2000) and presents a comprehensive technological and economic assessment of the technology. The assessment of the production economics, in this review, is for a plant at a US Gulf Coast location, with an annual capacity of 1,102.3 million pounds or 500,000 metric tons of VCM. An iPEP Navigator® module, which is an Excel® -based computer costing model developed by S&P Global Commodity Insights, is also attached with this review to allow quick calculation of the process economics for other major regions of the world.
This techno-economic assessment of the balanced process for VCM production is PEP’s independent interpretation of the commercial process based on the information presented in the open literature, such as patents or technical articles, and it may not reflect in whole or in part the actual plant configuration. We do believe that our assessment is sufficiently representative of the process and process economics within the range of accuracy necessary for an economic evaluation of the conceptual process design. This review will be a valuable resource for planners, producers and designers who are looking for an authentic evaluation of capital and production costs for VCM production.