Supply and demand imbalance methanol overcapacity was "cooling"

In 2012, China's chemical industry was filled with a pessimistic mood, and marketing was at a low level. Sinopec data showed that sales in the first quarter of this year were 671.365 billion yuan, up 14% year-on-year, but its net profit was 12.83 billion yuan, down 37.4% year-on-year. Among them, the petrochemical segment's marketing profit was 1.3 billion yuan, down 86% year-on-year; the chemical segment's operating loss was 413 million yuan, and the ethylene marketing profit was only 535 yuan/ton. In the first quarter of last year, the marketing profit was as high as 3,600 yuan/ton.

However, Sinopec is just a microcosm of the chemical industry, as an important chemical raw materials, the methanol industry is also facing a crisis of survival because of the conflict between supply and demand. The data provided by the China Light Industry Federation shows that in the ** market, the energy and chemical sectors have been relatively weak for nearly two months, and methanol and coke have fallen by about 10%.

In fact, since the financial crisis that engulfed the world in the second half of 2008, foreign methanol producers have exported methanol to China at a low price, which has caused domestic methanol prices to stagnate. Until 2010, the methanol market price rebounded, but despite this, some methanol companies are still struggling.

Blindly building hidden methanol, an important organic chemical raw material, is also a substitute for energy. The upstream raw materials for methanol come from coal, natural gas, and coke oven gas. The downstream products are formaldehyde, dimethyl ether, methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), acetic acid, and methanol gasoline. China's methanol market is mainly distributed in East China, Central China, North China and South China.

With the rapid development of China's chemical industry and high oil prices, several methanol projects have started one after another. The methanol industry has also entered a period of rapid development under the macroeconomic and downstream requirements. The domestic methanol market has been affected by downstream demand and production costs since 2002, and the price of methanol has been continuously rising. The highest increase in the market price of methanol exceeds 100%, and the profit per ton of methanol produced by manufacturers with better efficiency exceeds 1,000 yuan per ton. Driven by huge profits, some big brothers swarmed to expand or build new methanol production companies, leading to a rapid expansion of methanol production capacity.

According to trade statistics, in 2008, China's new methanol expansion capacity reached nearly 8 million tons, a growth rate of 33 percentage points over 2007, and the country’s total methanol production capacity exceeded 27 million tons, an increase of nearly 40% from 2007.

China National Nitrogen Fertilizer Industry Association Methanol Specialty Committee statistics show that in 2010, China's methanol production was 17.52 million tons, an increase of 169% over the early period of the 11th Five-Year Plan, and the average annual growth rate was about 22%. At the end of 2010, China's methanol production There are 291 enterprises in the industry, with a production capacity of 38.4 million tons, which is three times more than that in the early period of the 11th Five-Year Plan, with an average annual growth rate of 32%.

Li Sangsheng, executive vice president of the China Petrochemical Federation, said in an interview with the media that the overheated investment in the methanol industry has become a consensus in the industry. In 2011, although the operating rate of methanol plant increased compared to the previous year, it was still less than 60%. While the outlook for coal-to-olefins and methanol-gasoline remains optimistic, some companies blindly launched their own research without considering their own conditions, regional layout, and technological advances.

He said that at present, a few coal-producing provinces do not consider ecological and environmental carrying capacity, and introduce a number of large-scale coal chemical projects with the same structure in the same area and the same development zone, and even several large-scale coal chemical industries do not have the necessary conditions. The project, from the downstream consumption of methanol in 2011, sees serious excess capacity in products such as formaldehyde, acetic acid, and dimethylformamide.

Multi-factor overcapacity In fact, at present, the entire methanol industry has fallen into a structural overcapacity crisis. According to the latest statistics from China Nitrogen Fertilizer Industry Association, in 2012, China will have more than 5.5 million tons of new methanol plant put into operation, and the total production capacity is expected to reach more than 52 million tons, while the current annual methanol consumption is only about 22 million tons. The operating rate of domestic methanol companies was 55.52%. Some companies were forced to lower the load of the equipment due to shipping pressure.

A person in charge of the methanol business, who asked not to be named, told reporters that the methanol industry was a 'gold industry' before the financial crisis. At that time, whoever did not regret it, but now the upstream and downstream products of methanol have lost support, leading to a sharp downturn in the industry.

Wang Guanglin, responsible for sales of Ningbo High-tech Zone Tongcheng Chemical Co., Ltd., told the reporter on the telephone that the impact of imported methanol in the Middle East was also one of the reasons for the domestic methanol depression. The countries in the Middle East have rich natural gas resources. They positioned the methanol industry in overseas markets, and China It is their main market that occupies the position of the main force of imported methanol in China. They have a very perfect methanol sales system. However, our domestic methanol manufacturers are either state-run or small-scale private enterprises, and they do not have the advantage of resources. Therefore, the only basic competition in price is to import methanol.

China Eastern Chemical Network analyst Zhang Guoliang said in an interview with reporters that the current domestic and international economic downturn, especially the weak domestic demand led to high methanol inventory. Methanol imported from China mostly comes from the Middle East. There is an advantage in the price of methanol in the Middle East. In addition, domestic financing companies have imported for financing needs, and sometimes even the phenomenon of inward and outward price inversion has occurred.

At the same time, Zhang Guoliang stated that at present, the cost of methanol production in the northwestern region of China is the lowest in the country because it is made from coal to methanol and the electricity bill is also low. However, due to the restriction of transportation capacity, methanol in the northwest region is transported to major destinations such as East China. It is often unstable on the delivery date, followed by higher freight costs. This also makes downstream coastal users prefer to accept imported freight. The export of foreign supplies into the coastal area has made the domestic methanol market situation more severe.

Get rid of 'growth troubles'

The fast-growing methanol industry is experiencing 'growing troubles'. The overcapacity caused by blind construction and disorderly competition has caused the entire industry to worry. In order to solve the problem of overcapacity, industry associations have also had to try to improve industry entry barriers.

It is understood that the Nitrogen Fertilizer Association's Methanol Specialty Committee has put forward the "Proposal on the Orderly Development of the Methanol Industry" and proposed to improve the access threshold for many industries. Once the access threshold is increased, the top-down methanol industry will also shuffle. It's not too far away.

The "Proposal" proposes that no new coal-to-methanol project with an annual output of 1 million tons or less be built. The new methanol project must have the following conditions, advanced technology, reasonable layout and complete procedures, and at the same time supporting downstream products with market capacity. Large-scale methanol companies must Do a good job in adjusting the product structure, focusing on the development of high-tech extension products in chemical new materials, fine chemicals, new energy, etc., and stop building coal-based methanol-to-olefin projects with an annual output of 500,000 tons or less. Large-scale methanol companies will strengthen cooperation with downstream companies. To achieve the integration of upstream and downstream development. The "Proposal" is currently being discussed in the industry.

In addition to improving many industry entry thresholds, Zhang Guoliang believes that the state should strictly control the launch of new capacity projects, at the same time it should speed up the application of methanol gasoline market, eliminate some of the serious environmental pollution production capacity, in addition to the banking system to deal with methanol * * Behave in a controlled manner, thus starting from various aspects and improving the production and development environment of the domestic methanol industry.

According to the reporter’s understanding, four drafts of the National Standard for Energy Consumption of Methanol per Unit Product Energy Consumption have been issued for the coal, natural gas, coke oven gas, and co-production of synthetic ammonia. Once the standard is implemented, the production, operation, new construction, and elimination indicators of methanol plants will be issued. Will be used as a basis.

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