Acrylonitrile Increased 17.9% Compared With The Beginning Of The Year.

Acrylonitrile has been rising steadily since the end of this year. As of last weekend, the price has reached 13 thousand and 800 yuan / tonne, up 17.9% from the beginning of this year.

Short term supply of acrylonitrile will continue, and prices will continue to rise.

However, with the expansion of domestic capacity, the acrylonitrile industry will be under great pressure.

In February, the 545 thousand tons / year, 280 thousand tons / year and 300 thousand tons / year of acrylonitrile plant in Germany were enforced by force majeure. In addition, the Shandong Hai Jiang plant stopped in March 3rd because of the fault. The supply of acrylonitrile in the world has been tightened sharply, and the price of the acrylonitrile plant has been rising rapidly, and the price of acrylonitrile in the short term will continue to rise.

But on the long term, acrylonitrile is not optimistic with the growth of domestic new plants and the slow growth of downstream demand.

In terms of supply, domestic acrylonitrile capacity expansion has been limited in the past few years.

There was no new production capacity in 2016-2017. In 2018, Shandong Hai Jiang 130 thousand tons / year put into operation and made domestic production capacity of 2 million 69 thousand tons / year.

The capacity of the 2019-2020 year plan put into operation has reached 1 million 630 thousand tons, much higher than the previous years.

If these devices can be put into operation on schedule, the supply of acrylonitrile will turn to excess, and competition among domestic manufacturers will become increasingly fierce.

At the same time, downstream demand for acrylonitrile is relatively limited.

The main consumption areas of acrylonitrile include ABS resin, acrylic fiber, acrylamide and other industries.

After many years of rapid development, ABS industry has replaced acrylic fiber industry as the largest downstream of acrylonitrile.

But in recent years, the development of ABS has slowed down significantly. The 2019-2020 - year plan of new production capacity is 350 thousand tons, far below the growth rate of acrylonitrile.

The proportion of acrylic fiber demand has been declining year by year, coupled with the continuous high impact of raw materials, production enterprises have been in a state of deficit for a long time, and the industry prospect is very worrying.

Acrylamide is the only bright spot.

With the gradual improvement of China's environmental protection requirements, the sewage treatment industry is developing rapidly, which will enhance the demand for acrylamide. However, due to the small capacity of the unit, the demand for acrylonitrile is limited.

In terms of imports, the proportion of imports of acrylonitrile in China has been hovering at 10-20% in recent years, mainly from China, Taiwan, Korea and the United States.

From the data point of view, domestic import acrylonitrile manufacturers are mainly concentrated in Zhenjiang Chi Mei, Taiwan chemical plastics (Ningbo) and other Taiwan funded plastics manufacturers. Their raw materials imports are relatively stable. In the late period, even if domestic capacity increased significantly, the expected impact on imports is still small.

In a word, the short supply of acrylonitrile will continue in the short term due to the parking of main manufacturers, and the price will still increase.

But the long term, acrylonitrile capacity growth is significantly larger than the growth of downstream demand, the supply side will soon become saturated, the overall outlook is more worrying.