Producer
Westlake Corporation
American petrochemical and building products company (NYSE: WLK, HQ Houston TX; ~$14B revenue; Chao family controlled); major US caustic soda producer via its chlor-alkali operations (including former Axiall/PolyOne chlor-alkali assets acquired 2016). Westlake produces NaOH for pulp/paper, aluminum smelting, and chemical applications alongside chlorine for PVC production. Westlake's Houston TX headquarters and Texas/Louisiana Gulf Coast chlor-alkali operations were significantly disrupted by February 2021's Winter Storm Uri — contributing to the 28% US chlor-alkali capacity outage that drove NaOH prices from ~$280/tonne to over $600/tonne. Westlake is the world's largest PVC pipe manufacturer (through its GENOVA Products, Charlotte Pipe, and other brands) — the same company that makes PVC water supply pipes in every new US home also makes the caustic soda in the kraft pulping liquor producing the cardboard that those pipes are shipped in.
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Vinyls (Chlor-Alkali + PVC Resin)
50%Building Products (PVC Downstream)
35%Epoxy Resins (Advanced Intermediates)
10%Chlorinated Derivatives
5%
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Did you know2023
Westlake is publicly known for PVC pipe (plumbing), but the same vertically integrated chemical chain produces caustic soda (NaOH) used in the Kraft pulping process that makes cardboard — meaning Westlake produces the PVC water supply pipes installed in new homes AND the caustic soda used in making the cardboard boxes those pipes are shipped in. More broadly: Westlake's caustic soda goes into: aluminum smelting (5-7 kg NaOH per kg aluminum), kraft pulp/paper production, soap and detergent manufacturing, pharmaceutical synthesis (multiple API reactions), and food processing (olive curing, pretzel making). A single Westlake chlor-alkali plant shutdown simultaneously affects aluminum, paper, soap, pharmaceutical, and food processing supply chains. The Westlake Hurricane/freeze vulnerability (demonstrated by Winter Storm Uri 2021) affects all these industries simultaneously from Texas/Louisiana geography.
Westlake Corporation ↗Origin2023
Westlake Corporation was founded in 1986 in Houston, Texas by Taiwanese-American entrepreneur Frank Qing-Lin Luk and his family. Luk, who had previously worked in the petrochemical industry, built Westlake from a startup polyethylene producer into one of the largest US PVC companies through the acquisition of distressed chemical plants during industry downturns — the same counter-cyclical acquisition strategy used by Valero in refining. The transformative acquisition was the $3.8 billion purchase of Axiall Corporation in 2016, which added major chlor-alkali capacity in Louisiana and Texas. The Chao family (Luk's family) controls Westlake through a holding structure and has maintained ~30% ownership as a public company. February 2021's Winter Storm Uri shut down most of Westlake's Gulf Coast operations simultaneously, contributing to 28% of US chlor-alkali capacity going offline — raising caustic soda prices from ~$280/tonne to over $600/tonne within weeks. The same storm that left millions of Texans without power also constrained global caustic soda supply used in aluminum smelting, pulp processing, and pharmaceutical manufacturing for months.
Westlake Corporation ↗