Citric acid: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Citric acid is fermented from glucose made from maize starch, sugar or cassava, mostly in large Chinese plants. Feedstock, coal-fired steam, Chinese capacity and anti-dumping duties abroad set the price, while drinks, food and detergents drive steady demand.
No public price Citric acid has no public monthly price series: Sold on contracts and quotes, mostly from China; no public price index.What its price moves with
Chinese plants ferment glucose from maize starch, so the corn price in China is the largest cost. When Chinese corn rises, makers raise export offers, although overcapacity often keeps margins thin and the pass-through slow.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.The fermentation sugar comes from starch hydrolysed to glucose syrup, so citric acid sits one step downstream of starch milling. Many Chinese citric acid makers run their own starch plants, which ties both prices to the same corn supply.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Plants outside China, in Europe, Thailand and Brazil, often ferment cane or beet sugar or molasses. A high world sugar price raises their costs and makes Chinese corn-based supply even more competitive.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.In the classic process citric acid is precipitated with lime and then released with sulphuric acid, leaving gypsum as waste. Acid is a modest cost, but supply shocks in sulphuric acid raise processing costs for this route.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Fermentation, evaporation and drying use a lot of steam, and Chinese plants mostly raise it from coal. Coal and power prices in China, and curbs on coal use, have at times cut output and lifted citric acid prices.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.How to read these numbers
Correlation of monthly changes (the number in the coloured pill) compares how much each price moved, month by month, since 2006 or the first month both series exist. It runs from −1 to +1: near +1 the two usually rise and fall in the same months, near 0 there is no link, and a negative number means they tend to move in opposite directions. Above 0.7 is strong, 0.4 to 0.7 moderate, 0.2 to 0.4 weak.
12-month changes compare year-on-year moves, which shows whether two prices share the same cycles even when the month-to-month noise differs.
Price function is a straight-line fit of the two prices on logarithmic scales: price ≈ k × (partner price)β. β is how much this price moves, in per cent, for a 1% move in the partner over the whole period, and R² is the share of the variation the fit explains. Two prices that both drift up with inflation can fit well without any real link, so read it together with the monthly correlation.
Lead or lag checks whether the monthly correlation is clearly higher when one price is shifted by 1 to 6 months.
Correlation is not cause. The reasons on each card explain the economic link; the numbers show how strongly it has shown up in prices. Proxy series are US producer price indexes or related prices and can blur the real link.
Data: World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), October 2026; US Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price indexes, IMF primary commodity prices and US EIA prices via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, retrieved November 2026. Calculations by this site.