This is a question I don’t know the answer to, so I thought I’d throw it out to my general readership.
Why hasn’t isopropyl alcohol dropped back down to its 2019 prices?
Back then, I remember isopropyl alcohol being priced about on par with hydrogen peroxide, somewhere under $1 for 16 oz bottles of 50% isopropyl alcohol.
But during The Great Flu Manchu Panic of 2020, the price of isopropyl alcohol spiked and it became scarce as untold millions of households tried to disinfect every possible surface in hopes of eradicating the then-novel virus.
But now that the pandemic is over, and store shelves are back to being stocked, why is the price of isopropyl alcohol stuck as twice as high as what is used to be? While hydrogen peroxide seems to be back around 86¢, HEB no longer seems to have 50% isopropyl alcohol at all, only the 70% at $1.94 a bottle. But 50% seems just as pricey online at Amazon.
Earlier this year, HEB was blowing out those off-brand hand sanitizers (which are mostly alcohol anyway) companies started producing during the pandemic for 10¢ each. So why has the price on the real one remained stuck so stubbornly high?
I have no idea why, so I’m throwing the question out to my readers. If you know, share it in the comments below.
Tags: coronavirus, Economics, isopropyl alcohol
Supply considerations: IPA is commercially prepared by the hydration of propylene. Propylene feedstock is petroleum. We need cheaper oil to get cheaper IPA. US production is robust but there are issues at nearly every process with labor shortages. Chinese IPA is affected by their need to import oil and lockdowns. In Europe it’s oil and natural gas (process heat) impacting. The pandemic also stopped investment in new plants as ownership didn’t have a good feeling about future demand. The ice storm in Texas last February had a huge impact on production, as plants pipes carrying cooling water froze and burst – causing many miles of stainless pipe repairs in these plants.
Demand considerations: The chemical industry has been short of IPA since the pandemic and huge upsurge of hand sanitizer demand. Although hand sanitizer demand is waning it is still a multiple over historical demand. Also the IPA you’re purchasing today wasn’t made today. It’s price isn’t fungible like gasoline.
I can attest it is still a bit short on the industrial side. Not quite as bad as some things, but ordering it right now generally gets you less than ordered and price still up, this is a problem for us across the board. A local fire has added to the problems here. We have some items we can not make as the raws are not available. IPA isn’t one of those, any longer, but the price is high and we might be making one batch instead of two. Oil being high hurts, and the hole we dug in ’20 and ’21 means some things don’t get made when other things are needed and bring in more money. We’ve had to order Reagent, and Food grade as Technical grade isn’t available. The other two might take more work, but are more profitable. Also a LOT of technical grade comes from the CCP Sino Middle Kingdom.