A Year in Review

Focus on our Safety

Safety First; our sector's unwavering commitment.

The critical role of Chlor-Alkali in Europe's industrial resilience carries an equally critical responsibility: operating every facility to the highest safety standards for colleagues, neighbouring communities, and the environment.

Whilst real progress has been made in process safety and operational practice over recent decades, our members remain united around the conviction that every incident is one too many. Euro Chlor continues to monitor sector safety performance and invest in, refine and share best practices. This is because safety leadership is a constant commitment.

Updating the Safe Loading and Unloading video

Incident data over the past few years has shown a rise in loading and unloading incidents, with root causes overwhelmingly human in nature. High staff turnover, inexperienced recruits, economic pressures, and language barriers between lorry drivers and site operators are all playing a role here.

In response, Euro Chlor released a short animated video in January 2025, available with multilingual subtitles on its YouTube channel, providing a safety checklist for drivers and operators.

Following its positive reception as a training tool, the video is now being updated with the help of member companies' technical experts to include greater use of pictograms to bridge communication gaps, clearer guidance on sampling procedures and improved visuals to better reflect real on-site conditions.

Keeping our sector's safety knowledge base current

Euro Chlor's technical and safety documents follow a structured five-year review cycle. This is complemented by annual updates, ensuring guidance stays accurate, relevant and aligned with the latest operational and regulatory developments.

Alongside this routine work, growing interest from both our members and external stakeholders has prompted a dedicated, in-depth Guidance on Hydrogen Process Safety in Chlor-Alkali Production. Covering the entire Hydrogen journey (from production through to delivery to the customer), it is being prepared to map out relevant processes and safety considerations. Publication is expected by the end of 2026.

Euro Chlor has also reviewed the applicability of its valve certification process (GEST 17/492, Specifications and Approval Procedure for Valves to be Used in Liquid Chlorine or Dry Chlorine Gas) with a view to extending the size range of valves to better reflect operational realities in certain installations.

Exploring how AI and automation can enhance our sector's safety performance

Euro Chlor member companies are exploring how AI and automation could strengthen safety performance. For anomaly detection and incident trend analysis, some members are already at the piloting stage. On the engineering side, automatic locks on loading points and improved site layouts to separate incompatible products are among the practical measures also under consideration.

Euro Chlor's General Technical Committee (GTC) is monitoring these developments closely to consolidate learnings and share best practices, with sector-wide recommendations to follow if clear safety benefits are demonstrated.

A new in-depth Chlor-Alkali Hydrogen Guidance is in preparation, covering the entire product journey from production through to delivery to the customer.

Facts and Figures

Facts and Figures about our sector's Safety

Process incidents and losses KPI

In 2025, we saw a 2.5% decrease in our process incidents and losses compared to 2024, with 3.44 incidents per million tonnes of Chlorine produced (versus 3.53 in 2024). In absolute numbers, this means a total of 26 process incidents reported in our annual sustainability survey. This confirms the return to pre-pandemic levels. Euro Chlor members remain committed to further reducing incidents.

Loss of Primary Containment (LOPC) incidents and other process incidents

Since the start of our third Sustainability Programme in 2021, we have reported a breakdown of LOPC incidents by chemical.

In 2025, this breakdown reflects a similar pattern to previous years, with Chlorine and Caustic Soda accounting for the majority of reported incidents, whilst Hydrochloric Acid-related incidents decreased versus 2024.

Incident reporting KPI

The decline in incident reporting rates observed in previous years continued in 2025, with the reporting rate falling further to 53.8%, down from 61% in 2024 and 73% in 2023.

Euro Chlor continues to actively pursue missing reports, with the ongoing support of its Management Committee, to help reverse this trend and restore robust reporting levels across the sector.

Lost Time Injuries (LTIs) KPI

We continue to see a downward trend in LTIs among member company staff and contractors, with the frequency rate falling from 2.42 per million working hours in 2023 to 1.95 in 2024, and further to 1.57 in 2025. This marks a return to pre-pandemic levels and represents the lowest rate recorded since 2018.

It is also worth highlighting that contractor-related incidents fell significantly compared with their 2024 peak, reflecting the positive impact of ongoing, focused safety initiatives across our industry.

2025 recorded zero transport incidents, representing a clear improvement on 2024. We remain committed to sustaining this.

Transportation of Chlorine KPI

For safety reasons, Chlorine is mostly converted and used on-site, or transported to neighbouring customer sites via pipeline.

In recent years, we have observed a continuous downward trend in off-site Chlorine transportation (excluding pipelines), with transported volumes dropping from 4.7% of total Chlorine production in 2023 to 3.8% in 2024, and further to 3.7% in 2025. This reflects a growing shift towards short-distance pipeline transport.

Transportation of Caustic Soda

Unlike Chlorine, the majority of Caustic Soda produced is transported off-site.

In 2025, the total volume of Caustic Soda transported through public areas remained broadly stable, reaching 13.6 million tonnes, compared with 13.9 million tonnes in 2024.

Road and ship remained the primary modes of transport in 2025, each accounting for 31% of the total volume transported. However, we have seen a notable shift towards pipelines, which accounted for 25.1% of the total transported volume in 2025, up from 17.8% in 2024.

For both Chlorine and Caustic Soda, we see a notable shift towards pipeline transport.