In 2017, the domestic caprolactam market has seen an overall increase in volatility. The market is like a roller coaster, which has risen sharply into a normal market. The market prices have been constantly refreshed in the past two years. The high prices have brought huge profits to the enterprises. The caprolactam enterprises as a whole Profitability significantly increased over last year.Company in 2016 as a whole at a loss, and caprolactam in 2017 not only profitable, and the average annual profit as high as 2,000 yuan / ton, into the high profit model.While the raw material benzene market to maintain a narrow range of long-term shocks Pattern, good support for caprolactam weaker, caprolactam itself supply and demand pattern affecting the market trend of the main reasons.
A few years ago, with the rapid economic development in our country, caprolactam production capacity in China was seriously insufficient. Caprolactam production capacity increased rapidly in order to meet the downstream demand, with production capacity doubled to 1.13 million tons / year in 2012, while production capacity by the end of 2017 Reaching about 3.55 million tons / year with an average annual growth rate of about 22%. However, with the continuous release of new production capacity, the growth of follow-up capacity has slowed down. In 2018, it is estimated that 400,000 tons / year of production capacity will be put into operation, An increase of about 10%.
According to the statistics of import, the import volume of caprolactam in China reached a historical high of about 710,000 tons / year in 2012, and since then, the import volume of caprolactam has been declining year by year with the continuous release of new capacity in our country. Began to drop sharply, with imports of about 450,000 tons in 2013 and imports of about 220,000 tons in 2014. However, the imports of caprolactam in China in the next three years were basically the same as in 2014. On the one hand, the output of domestic enterprises The overall quality is not high, high-end products in China are still dependent on imports; In addition, multinational corporations in the import business accounted for part of the need for global distribution; Third, due to the downstream PA6 enterprises are more concentrated in Fujian, Guangdong and Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, and domestic caprolactam more dispersed enterprises, Due to the high cost of transportation, some enterprises choose to import, and under the current pattern, there is no major change in the import volume of caprolactam in China in the short term.
From the demand situation, the downstream growth slowed down, the problem of overcapacity gradually highlighted.China's caprolactam is mainly used for the production of PA6 fiber and PA6 engineering plastics, of which the demand for PA6 fiber accounts for about 66% of China's total caprolactam consumption, PA6 project Plastic demand accounts for about 32%, other needs about 2% .With the steady development of China's economy, textile, automotive, electronics, transportation and other industries on the PA6 demand is also rising, according to statistics, the domestic PA6 device from The annual growth rate of about 1.9 million tons / year in 2012 to 4 million tons / year in 2017 is about 15% .Although the domestic caprolactam market has temporarily turned positive in 2017, in the recent two years, with the increase of domestic GDP Slowing, supply-side reform and pressure on the environment, the downstream PA and terminal businesses slowed down significantly, overcapacity of caprolactam has become prominent, the next few years will face severe challenges.
In summary, China's caprolactam is facing low-end overcapacity and high-end production capacity of the situation, we should actively seek the development of quality, rather than rely on the amount to win. In addition, the domestic non-fiber applications compared with the international The larger the gap, companies should seize the current favorable situation for the development of the industry to seek a new way out.