This data-file captures the economics of producing formaldehyde, which is one of the ‘top 50’ commodity chemicals globally.
Formaldehyde is used in making urea-formaldehyde resins, which in turn are used to make fibre-board wood products (e.g., MDF); in other adhesive products (e.g., as might be used in producing wind turbine blades); and in smaller quantities to produce paints and disinfectants.
We think marginal cost of producing formaldehyde in normal times is around $500/ton (of pure formaldehyde), although the costs are a direct linear function of gas prices.
Total embedded CO2 is around 0.75tons/ton of formaldehyde (again on a 100% basis), of which c90% is embedded in producing methanol as a chemical input.