The Eti Soda Inc. is a chemical industry company in Ankara Province, Turkey producing natural soda ash and baking soda from trona. It was founded in 1998, and the production started in 2009. The company's main shareholder is

Ciner Group Ciner Group (known as Park Holding until December 1994) is an industrial conglomerate in Turkey operating in energy, media, and commerce. Via Ciner Media Group, it owns media properties including the ''Habertürk'' newspaper and Habertürk TV. ...

Background

Trona ore deposits were discovered at Beypazarı, around northwest of

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...

, during drilling operations for coal

exploration Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...

in 1979. Exploration works for trona ore reserve continued until 1985. According to world's leading consulting firms, mining of the trona ore at Bypazarı was not feasible with known methods. The state-owned mining company Eti Maden and the privately held

Ciner Holding Ciner Group (known as Park Holding until December 1994) is an industrial conglomerate in Turkey operating in energy, media, and commerce. Via Ciner Media Group, it owns media properties including the ''Habertürk'' newspaper and Habertürk TV ...

jointly took a risk and developed

solution mining In-situ leaching (ISL), also called in-situ recovery (ISR) or solution mining, is a mining process used to recover minerals such as copper and uranium through boreholes drilled into a deposit, ''in situ''. In situ leach works by artificially disso ...

method for extraction of trona ore. The method, which was new in the world, has been then patented. In 1998, the Eti Soda Inc. was established in Ankara. The building of the soda production and

cogeneration Cogeneration or combined heat and power (CHP) is the use of a heat engine or power station to generate electricity and useful heat at the same time. Cogeneration is a more efficient use of fuel or heat, because otherwise- wasted heat from elect ...

plants were completed between 2007 and 2009. The production of soda ash started with an official inauguration ceremony, which took place in presence of Prime minister

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician serving as the List of presidents of Turkey, 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as prime minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as Lis ...

and

Minister of Energy and Natural Resources The minister of energy and natural resources () is the minister of the Crown in the Canadian Cabinet who is responsible for Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). In addition to NRCan, the minister oversees the federal government's natural resources ...

Hilmi Güler Mehmet Hilmi Güler (born 15 July 1946) is a Turkish politician and metallurgical engineer. He was the Energy and Natural Resources Minister of Turkey in 2002–2009. He served as the general director of the Machines and Chemical Industries Boar ...

in March 2009. The Eti Soda Inc. is jointly owned in majority by Ciner Holding with 74% and by Eti Maden with 26%.

Plant and production

Trona ore is extracted by solution mining method. Hot water is injected into the trona ore deposit underground through bore holes drilled, which dissolves trona ore. The trona solution is pumped up and is processed to soda products as soda ash (

sodium carbonate Sodium carbonate, , (also known as washing soda, soda ash and soda crystals) is the inorganic compound with the formula Na2CO3 and its various hydrates. All forms are white, odourless, water-soluble salts that yield moderately alkaline solutions ...

, Na₂CO₃) and baking soda (

sodium bicarbonate Sodium bicarbonate (IUPAC name: sodium hydrogencarbonate), commonly known as baking soda or bicarbonate of soda, is a chemical compound with the formula NaHCO3. It is a salt composed of a sodium cation ( Na+) and a bicarbonate anion ( HCO3−) ...

, NaHCO₃). The soda ash is mainly used in the

glass production Glass production involves two main methods – the float glass process that produces sheet glass, and glassblowing that produces bottles and other containers. It has been done in a variety of ways during the history of glass. Glass container ...

. Products of Eti Soda are exported all over the world, especially to European countries. From 2009 to 2013, the value of soda ash exports to 53 countries reached US$1 billion. The annual production capacity of the Eti Soda facilities is one million tons of soda ash and 100,000 tons of baking soda. In 2010, already in its first year of the operation, the company fulfilled its production capacity. For comparison the 2022 production for the whole country was estimate at 4 to 5 million tonnes.

Environmental impact

There is a 20 MW cogeneration

coal-fired power station A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity. Worldwide, there are about 8,500 coal-fired power stations totaling over 2,000 gigawatts Nameplate capacity, capacity. They ...

Climate Trace Climate TRACE (Tracking Real-Time Atmospheric Carbon Emissions) is an independent group which monitors and publishes greenhouse gas emissions within weeks. It launched in 2021 before COP26, and improves monitoring, reporting and verification (MR ...

estimated a 3570 million tonne source of greenhouse gas from soda ash in Turkey in 2022, but had low confidence in its estimate and had not been able to identify the company. ETI Soda aims to reduce its total scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by almost 30% from 2021 to 480 million tonnes a year by 2028.

References

{{Authority control Ciner Glass and Chemicals Group Mining companies of Turkey Chemical companies of Turkey Chemical plants Industrial buildings in Turkey Industrial buildings completed in 2009 Chemical companies established in 1998 Non-renewable resource companies established in 1998 Turkish companies established in 1998 Companies based in Ankara Beypazarı District 21st-century architecture in Turkey

Background

Plant and production

Environmental impact

See also

References