Salt: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Salt is mined as rock salt, evaporated from seawater by sun and wind, as on India's Gujarat coast, or vacuum-evaporated from brine. Heavy and cheap, it is priced locally by freight. Chemicals, de-icing, food and water softening set demand.
Price index US producer price index: evaporated salt index, BLS base period · monthly, Jan 2006 to Aug 2026What its price moves with
Selected linkSalt and Chlorine
Monthly changes -0.10 little or none correlation 12-month changes -0.09 little or none correlation Lead or lag +5 mo Chlorine tends to lead by 5 months (r 0.15) Price function, Jan 2006 to Aug 2026 Salt ≈ 3.10 × (Chlorine)0.71 R² 0.61 On this fit, a 10% higher chlorine price goes with a 7.0% higher salt price over the long run. Units: index, BLS base period and index (BLS base period).Chart: Salt and Chlorine prices rebased to 100 at Jan 2006, log scale
Both prices rebased to 100 at Jan 2006, on a log scale so equal percentage moves look the same size.Chart: Salt price against Chlorine price, monthly, log scales, with fitted line
Each dot is one month; paler dots are older (2006), darker dots recent (2026); the ringed dot is the latest month. The dashed line is the fitted price function. Both axes are logarithmic.Electrolysing brine makes chlorine and caustic soda, the largest chemical use of salt. The indexes show almost no link, with monthly moves at -0.10 and yearly moves at -0.09, because chlor-alkali plants often own brine wells or buy salt on long contracts, and the alkali index mainly follows power and caustic demand.
little or none co-movement month to month · 162 months Show chartsSynthetic soda ash plants, including those in Gujarat and China, use salt brine and limestone. In this data soda ash shares one producer price index with chlorine and caustic soda, so it shows the same lack of link with salt, at -0.10 monthly, while natural soda ash from trona needs no salt.
little or none co-movement month to month · 162 months Show chartsVacuum-pan evaporated salt, the grade in this index, is made with steam raised by burning natural gas. There is little link, monthly moves at 0.01 and yearly moves at -0.29, since salt makers set prices yearly and fuel is only one cost beside freight and packing.
little or none co-movement month to month · 162 months Show chartsSolar salt works in India, Australia and Mexico rely on sunshine and wind to evaporate seawater over months. Monsoon timing and heavy rain can cut output, so weather rather than fuel cost drives this supply.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Rock salt and potash come from the same ancient evaporite beds and are mined with similar methods, sometimes by the same companies. Their prices barely move together, monthly moves at 0.07, because potash follows fertiliser markets while salt follows local chemical and road demand.
little or none co-movement month to month · 162 months Show chartsHow 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.