CaC₂: worldwide production

    The overall trend in worldwide production of CaC₂ is in a downward direction. Analysis of the market explains this, in part, in terms of a switch from ethyne (which is manufactured from CaC₂) to ethene as a precursor in the organic chemical industry. However, trends in different regions of the world (shown below between 1962 and 1982) reflect differing strategies. For example, in South Africa where coal (rather than oil) reserves constitute the available raw materials, production of CaC₂ has increased. The increase in Eastern Europe seen in the 1980s is now declining, in line with that of Western nations. In the US and Japan, the manufacture of ethyne is the major end use of CaC₂, while in Western Europe, the production of the nitrogenous fertilizer calcium cyanamide by the reaction: