Nylon Industry Suffers Raw Material Pain &Nbsp, Caprolactam Supply Will Be Blocked.

In 2011, it was not a smooth year for the nylon industry. First, the state ruled that the import of caprolactam from the EU and the United States was dumping. Now, affected by the Japanese earthquake, the supply of caprolactam raw materials will be affected again.

Caprolactam: one of the important organic chemical raw materials, its main purpose is to produce by polymerization.

On the afternoon of March 11th, a magnitude 9 earthquake struck the waters off Honshu Island, Japan, and triggered a tsunami.

Due to the impact of the earthquake on the petrochemical industry in the Japanese Industrial Zone of Beijing, many factories suffered heavy losses and were forced to shut down. Among them, there was a raw material benzene plant in the upstream plant of caprolactam. The factories were close to the deer island and Chiba in the epicenter. The production capacity of the pure benzene plant with a shutdown of production reached 1 million 140 thousand tons / year, so the supply of caprolactam feedstock in the late stage was rather uncertain.

As of 16, the three caprolactam production plant in Japan is preparing to reduce load rate and carry out planned maintenance. In the short term, caprolactam production will be reduced by 50%.

At present, the domestic manufacturers of caprolactam mainly include Sinopec Baling Branch, Shijiazhuang refining and chemical branch and Nanjing Eastern three companies.

The domestic demand for caprolactam is about 1 million 470 thousand tons. Domestic enterprises supply only about 400 thousand tons, and about 900000 tons rely on imports. Domestic production is far from meeting the needs of downstream enterprises. The main sources of domestic caprolactam are the European Union, the United States, Russia and Japan.

What we need to pay attention to is in Europe.

In Taiwan, a major earthquake disaster in Japan has caused the nylon manufacturers in the lower reaches of Taiwan to rush to purchase raw caprolactam spot currency. Due to the serious shortage of caprolactam contract in April, buyers purchased at least 3570-3600 tons / CFR of April for three tons of caprolactam in April or May, equivalent to 1 months of caprolactam imports from Taiwan.

These goods are from Eastern Europe, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, and some deep-sea goods are pported from original destination to China to Taiwan.

A week ago, the caprolactam market was in a doldrums, and the atmosphere of buying and waiting was strong.

With the steady growth of textile industry, the demand for caprolactam is strong.

From a comprehensive perspective, tight supply may further increase the price of caprolactam, and the price will go up. But considering the acceptance of downstream manufacturers and markets, the increase is unlikely to be too great.

At the end of January this year, the Ministry of Commerce ruled that dumping of caprolactam originating from the European Union and the United States was dumping. The dumping margin of Companies in Europe and the United States was 4.3%-25.5%.

In the view of China Chemical Fiber Industry Association, the production of caprolactam in Japan accounts for 1/10 of the world. The impact of the Japanese earthquake on caprolactam is only temporary. The nylon industry will be more affected by the anti-dumping effect of caprolactam initiated by China in the future.

and

According to the data in 2010, the total output of nylon filament and staple yarn is 1 million 620 thousand tons, which only accounts for less than 10% of the chemical fiber industry, which is lower than the world average level. The main consumption of domestic nylon is clothing and home textiles, and its use is limited to some of its advantages over other fiber dimensions, thus restricting the development and production of downstream products, resulting in a large gap between the productivity and quality of the differentiated functional products compared with that of foreign countries.

Therefore, the development of high technology and high added value products by chemical or physical means through technological innovation and process improvement has become an urgent problem in the nylon industry.