As a high-end petrochemical product with high added value and high technology threshold, polycarbonate has a high concentration of production capacity. The three largest polycarbonate producers such as Covestro, SABIC and Teijin account for more than half of the world's total capacity. The big giants account for more than 50%, showing an oligopolistic competition.
As one of the earliest countries to start PC development and industrial production, China has experienced slow development in the PC industry due to small scale, backward technology and poor product quality.
China is the fastest growing PC demand in recent years, and its import dependence has been very high. In 2016, China's PC apparent consumption was nearly 1.7 million tons, domestic production capacity was 875,000 tons/year, and output was about 600,000 tons. 1.319 million tons, import dependence reached 65%. And domestic PC devices are mostly foreign investment or Sino-foreign joint ventures, this part of the production capacity accounts for about 80%.
Because multinational companies have great advantages in product application research and market development, it is expected that they will occupy most of the global market and China's market for a long time to come. However, with local enterprises in China (such as Gale, Luxi, Wanhua, etc. Gradually gaining a foothold in the PC field, domestic PCs will gradually replace some imported products, and the domestic market supply pattern will gradually change. From the perspective of domestic PC supply and demand in 2000-2016, domestic demand will increase year by year, and capacity and The output growth rate is higher than the demand growth rate, the PC import volume has decreased, and the self-sufficiency rate has been continuously improved.
East China is still the main production base
According to the "2018 China Polycarbonate Industry Development Blue Book" released by the Polycarbonate Branch of the China Synthetic Resin Supply and Marketing Association in early August, China's PC production capacity has grown rapidly in the past five years, from 480,000 tons/year in 2013 to the current 945,000. Tonne/year, significantly alleviated the situation of serious dependence on imports. With the construction of new equipment, it is estimated that domestic PC production capacity will exceed 3 million tons/year by 2022, the average annual growth rate may reach 30%, and the output is expected to reach 2.3 million. Ton. In addition, only by the number of built-in installations, there will be 14 domestic PC manufacturers by 2020 and more than 16 by 2022, and the capacity distribution will be further dispersed.
From the perspective of capacity layout, China's PC production is highly concentrated, and East China accounts for more than 93% of the total production capacity. In addition to a set of 60,000 tons of equipment from Sinopec Mitsubishi Chemical Polycarbonate (Beijing) Co., Ltd., other devices are located in Shanghai, Zhejiang. Shandong, especially Shanghai, has more than half of its production capacity (57% of total domestic production capacity). As the largest domestic producer, Shanghai Costron's production capacity has continued to lead since 2008. In the next few years, Shanghai is still China. The most important PC production base, the source of radiation in East China, North China and South China market.
At present, Shandong has built a 65,000 tons/year PC capacity of Luxi Chemical. The capacity under construction and planning includes: Yantai Wanhua totaling 200,000 tons, Luxi Chemical Phase II 130,000 tons, Lihua Yiweiyuan 100,000 Tons, Qingdao Hengyuan plans 100,000 tons, of which Yantai Wanhua Phase I 70,000 tons project will be put into operation at the beginning of the year, and other projects will be put into production in 2018. By then, Shandong PC production capacity is expected to reach 600,000 tons/year, becoming the domestic PC. Starting from the rookie. Lutianhua Zhonglan New Materials Co., Ltd. adopts the non-phosgene melt transesterification process technology of Zhonglan Chenguangyuan, and plans to build a PC project with an annual output of 600,000 tons, including the first phase of industrial demonstration 2 × 100,000 tons / year PC The project has completed feasibility study in 2016. The first phase of the first phase of 100,000 tons / year PC and supporting 86,000 tons / year of diphenyl carbonate, the investment scale of about 1.2 billion yuan, planned to be completed and put into operation in 2018, then the southwest of China The first set of large-scale PC devices will also be built.
Domestic independent technology industrialization speeds up
The industrial production methods of PC include phosgene method and non-phosgene method, in which phosgene process capacity accounts for nearly 80%, while non-phosgene process capacity accounts for less than 20%. Non-phosgene method is in the process of raw material or resin production. No phosgene is used, which is an environmentally-friendly production process, which will become the development direction of PC production process in the future. Especially in the condition that domestic environmental protection requirements are gradually upgraded and phosgene resources are strictly regulated, except for Yantai Wanhua and Luxi Chemical, In the future, the planning and expansion of new domestic devices tend to adopt non-phosgene technology.
PC production technology has been highly monopolized for a long time, and it is very difficult for domestic enterprises to introduce technology. In recent years, with the domestic industrialization of domestic technology, foreign technology transfer has started, Shandong Lihuayi has successfully introduced Asahi Kasei non-phosgene PC technology, and is building 100,000 tons. / Year device. At present, the production capacity of Asahi Kasei non-phosgene technology in the global installation is 435,000 tons / year, concentrated in Russia, South Korea, the technology is highly mature, will bring the development of China's non-phosgene PC New situation.
Market competition is becoming increasingly fierce
With the slowdown in domestic demand growth and capacity expansion in recent years, PC market prices have continued to decline since 2010-2011. Since the beginning of 2016, due to the cost of raw materials, some PC products have risen in price, 2016 The average transaction price for the whole year was 17,000~18,000 yuan/ton. The price of the main raw material bisphenol A decreased with the oil price, and the price difference with PC continued to expand. Bisphenol A is the main raw material for PC production, accounting for about 75% of its raw material cost. Therefore, the trend of bisphenol A price has a greater impact on PC production costs.
According to the PC-bisphenol A spread analysis from 2000 to 2016, the spread showed a downward trend as a whole. However, since the raw material bisphenol A is a commodity, its market has fluctuated downward in recent years, which is a larger decline than the PC in the same period. PC costs have fallen sharply. Therefore, China's PC gross profit level has increased from 2015 to 2016. The average gross profit margin is 1,500~3500 yuan/ton, and some high-end PC gross margins are higher.
Enterprises should avoid blindly following the trend
China's PC industry has begun to enter the 'new normal' of production and demand. PC is an important engineering plastics, because its production is technically difficult and has a high barrier to entry. For a long time, China's PC market is in short supply, and the existing production capacity is about 80%. For foreign investment or joint ventures. Since the domestic local enterprises have worked hard to build two sets of PC devices in 2015, many companies are eager to try and build PC devices using various technology routes from different process routes. According to the progress of the project construction, it is estimated that by 2022 Domestic polycarbonate production capacity will exceed 3 million tons / year, the average annual growth rate may reach 30%, and the output is expected to reach 2.3 million tons.
In the future, the right to speak of local enterprises in China will be strengthened. However, enterprises need to pay attention to connotation and extension construction, and new projects should avoid blind follow-up. With the breakthrough of independent technology development and technology introduction, China's PC equipment investment will enter a new round in the next few years. However, due to the lack of independent and mature technology support, some of the newly added equipment products will be mainly low-end materials, and it is expected that there will be surplus of low-end products, lack of high-end products, and fierce market competition. In addition to optimizing processes, production companies will reduce In addition to equipment consumption and production costs, and improving product quality, we should also pay attention to PC modification and alloy product research and development, downstream new market development, and develop products for user needs.