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Directly hit by the Covid-19 crisis, sales of LCO2 and dry ice fall 10-20%
As the Covid-19 crisis enters summer, its impact on the liquefied carbon dioxide and dry ice industries has clearly shown up in figures. We inquired about product shipment trends from the main companies toward the end of June, and it seems that shipments of liquefied carbon dioxide for April and May were down an average of 10% to 20% over the previous year, while dry ice shipments were down roughly 10% for the same period.
Liquefied carbon dioxide for beverages was hit hard from relatively early on. Particularly the demand for liquefied carbon dioxide for pressurized feeding of draft beer in restaurants dropped up to 80% due to requests for people to remain at home and for stores to close temporarily. Sales of beverages from vending machines in tourist areas and roadway service areas also dropped greatly due to requests to remain at home and restrict travel, impacting shipments of liquefied carbon dioxide to beverage manufacturers. Demand for liquefied carbon dioxide for welding, which represents around half of demand, dropped 10% to 30% due to lower plant operation rates in the automobile and construction equipment industries, as well as elsewhere.
For dry ice, shipments grew 10% to 20% for coops delivering food to residences. However, demand for dry ice drops across the board for refrigerating chilled packages waiting for redelivery, shipments of frozen foods in the food service industry, cooling in-flight meals, and other commercial applications, deeply reflecting the effect of refrain from going out and moving.
(For more details...see at The Gas Review No.488)
01 Sep. 2020
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