Changes announced at Euro Chlor’s 2018 General Assembly

Euro Chlor, the European association of chlor-alkali manufacturers, announced at its 2018 General Assembly (GA) held today in Bordeaux, France, that Marleen Pauwels, Euro Chlor’s Science & Regulatory Affairs Director, will take over as Executive Director from Dolf van Wijk once he retires at the end of this year. In addition, Jürgen Baune of Akzo Nobel Industrial Chemicals B.V. will take over as Euro Chlor Management Committee Chair from Dieter Schnepel of Dow Deutschland AG for two years as of the GA.

Other changes discussed include the mercury phase-out and move to new offices. But some things definitely remain constant, especially Euro Chlor’s focus on safety and maintaining pressure for new and more competitive energy solutions for Europe, as well as striving for sustainability and innovation.

In his keynote, Dieter Schnepel explained that the phase-out of mercury in production processes, due as of 11th December 2017, represents a big structural change for the sector and another step forward in modernising technologies and improving sustainability. There is still work to be done, particularly around decommissioning, stabilisation and safe final disposal and Euro Chlor is active throughout that process.

He also announced that the association is preparing to move to new headquarters in central Brussels at the beginning of next year as an even more integrated part of the Cefic organisation.

Constant and increased focus on safety and energy

At the same time, he stressed that some things remain constant, including Euro Chlor’s absolute commitment to safety. The association’s safety initiative has been re-invigorated through talking with employees of all levels, at their sites to gain a deeper and mutual understanding of the needs. As a result, Euro Chlor is strengthening its focus on sharing experiences through incident reporting, and using that information to identify areas to develop and implement new practices. Key information on this can be found in the first ever digital version of Euro Chlor’s annual Industry Review just launched at https://chlorineindustryreview.com/. This 2017/2018 version covers the most important industry information divided up into five sections – Sustainability, Safety, Regulatory, Manufacturing & applications and About Euro Chlor.

Chlorine manufacture is an energy intensive process and the industry has made impressive progress towards energy efficiency. The low-carbon future we are working towards involves intense efforts combined with innovative technologies to produce energy and/or electricity. The chemical/chlor-alkali industry is only one player in this market.

A number of energy challenges were highlighted by the guest speaker, Roger Miesen, Chief Executive and Operational Officer of European power generation company RWE Generation SE, who shared his views on how Europe can contribute towards ensuring affordable, secure and reliable supply in the European power grid as the share of naturally volatile renewable energy increases. And Euro Chlor Technical and Safety Director Ton Manders reinforced the topic in his presentation where he demonstrated that current energy technology developments have limitations, which means that Europe needs new, out of the box, innovative energy technology solutions to deliver on EU ambitions whilst keeping manufacturing in Europe.

For more information please contact Euro Chlor Communications Manager Catherine Birkner - cab [at] cefic.be.