Europe smashes chemical price cartels

The European Commission has charged at least two suppliers of calcium carbide and magnesium powder with forming a cartel to fix prices of the chemicals, in what is seen as the start of a crackdown on price fixing within the chemical industry.

The chemicals firms named in the charges are Dutch supplier Akzo Nobel and Germany’s SKW Stahl-Metallurgie, which bought its powder business in September 2004 from Degussa.

The primary markets for these chemicals are steelmaking and industrial gas industries. Steelmakers use calcium carbide and magnesium powders to strengthen steel while industrial gas suppliers use calcium carbide to make acetylene gas.