Ethanol Industry "War Epidemic": Price Fluctuation Over The Previous Year'S Production Ratio Adjustment

Since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia, medical alcohol has suddenly become hot from marginal products.

"We are an alcohol producing enterprise. We are adjusting the production line to medical alcohol after the outbreak of the disease. We are also actively applying to the government for the license of medical alcohol to meet the current demand for medical alcohol in the market," a small and medium-sized enterprise in Shandong told reporters. "The main difficulty at present is in raw materials, on the one hand, the price is higher. On the one hand, logistics is very unsmooth.

It is worth mentioning that medical alcohol, in essence, belongs to an aqueous solution of ethanol. It is the lowest concentration of three ethanol standards, edible, medical and fuel, and it can be 70 to 80 degrees. Therefore, enterprises with edible (95 degree) or fuel ethanol (99.2 degrees) production capacity have certain production technology conditions and can turn to produce medical alcohol. However, it is necessary to apply for corresponding permits to the government.

For those enterprises that own the qualification of medical alcohol production, adjusting the product line and boosting the production of horsepower has become the most important work of the company for a period of time.

"The group has 1 million 600 thousand tons of ethanol production capacity. Last year, it basically maintained full load operation." Yue Guojun, chief scientist of the national investment group, told the reporter that "at present, the company produces more than 2000 tons of medical alcohol, especially during the Spring Festival, which has not stopped production and has been operating at full capacity."

Yue Guojun told reporters that the phenomenon of short supply in the market is due to the sudden increase in demand in the short term. "In fact, the total capacity of ethanol in China is 15 million tons / year, and the annual output is only about 8 million tons," he said. "There is still 7 million tons of spare capacity in theory. Therefore, China's protection of alcohol disinfectant production capacity is no problem."

Why is alcohol in short supply?

Since the outbreak of the epidemic, there has been a sharp increase in demand for disinfectants for disinfection in hospitals, offices and other places in addition to protective clothing and respirators.

In response to this new crown pneumonia epidemic prevention and control, the national health and Health Committee authority experts have repeatedly said that the new crown virus is afraid of alcohol intolerance to high temperature. The national health and Health Committee issued the "new coronavirus infection pneumonia diagnosis and treatment plan" also clearly pointed out that 75% ethanol can effectively inactivate the virus, in many disinfectants selection, alcohol has always been the first choice.

With the continuous development of epidemic prevention, the demand for alcohol in families, offices and other places has increased sharply, except for the disinfection needs of medical institutions. People in charge of biochip told reporters that in the same period last year, despite the qualification, "the proportion of medical alcohol in the company's production is very low."

"After the outbreak, domestic demand for alcohol disinfectant increased significantly, but inventory was seriously inadequate. Some areas even appeared to be out of stock and in short supply." He told reporters.

In addition to the sudden increase in disinfection demand, the lack of logistics due to the epidemic also caused tension in alcohol supply in some areas. Because most of the alcohol production capacity in China is concentrated in Northeast and North China, consumption is dispersed throughout the country. Road transportation has become the most realistic and convenient way of logistics.

"Since the outbreak of the epidemic, there have been many vehicles and fewer drivers." An industry source told reporters that "logistics constraints are not only reflected in the sales, but also in the supply chain of raw materials, so there is a shortage of supply."

Follow up, as the logistics industry and the ethanol industry resumed rapidly, the situation of alcohol shortage is expected to be eased.

According to the statistics of Jin LIAN, up to the end of last week, the domestic ethanol loading rate was about 41%. The load rate of the country has reached about 55% this week. The starting rate of medical alcohol production is about 97%. The daily output of ethanol has been mentioned at 15400 tons from 13500 tons of the Spring Festival holiday, and the follow-up has been resumed one by one.

At present, the demand for liquor is in the off-season, and fuel ethanol is also in a declining channel because of the rapid decline in refined oil consumption. It is expected that the price of alcohol will fall back in the middle and later stages of the epidemic. The industry said.

How does the enterprise adapt?

Faced with such a market situation, what enterprises can do is to adjust their production rhythm as soon as possible.

"For the national investment organisms, we have the three production qualification of edible alcohol, medical and fuel, and our technology can achieve very low product seamless conversion." Yue Guojun told reporters, "so, after this wave of market prices, we will adjust the product line according to the needs of the market, what we need to produce in the market demand."

In addition to the adjustment of the product line, in addition to the traditional bulk alcohol sales channels, small packaged medical alcohol products are also produced to supply directly to the market a variety of packaged disinfection products. In terms of logistics, the transportation team of the national investment organisms can realize the distribution of drivers under the road, and minimize the time cost due to isolation.

At present, the five biodiesel production bases in Jilin, Meihekou, Jilin, Yushu City, Tieling city of Liaoning province and Zhanjiang city of Guangdong province have rapidly transferred to the national standard of alcohol disinfectant, and the supply capacity of Nissan alcohol disinfectant has reached 2000 tons, and the supply capacity can be further improved according to market demand.

In addition to the vote, many ethanol companies have joined the battle against the new crown based on public information and interviews.

Such as the northeast region COFCO Zhaodong, Jilin fuel, Heilongjiang hung exhibition (Nehe, Jixian); Henan Mengzhou thick yuan, Xin Heyang, Huaxing; Shandong floating spring, Jiangsu flower hall; Anhui grain, Anhui Anhui God, ante; Bijing Jingyuan biology; Guang Guang Wei, Zhong Wu Zhong grain, Guigang Gan Gan, Xin Xin Tian De, and so on, are split part of the production capacity of 75 alcohol.

"The industry is originally in a situation of supply exceeding demand. At present, because of the logistics constraints, the supply of main production areas can not be delivered to all parts in time, and the price of alcohol at 75 degrees has risen sharply. But with the end of the epidemic, although it may be used as a reserve material, the consumption of 75 alcohol will be reduced, and prices will also fall. " Long Zhong alcohol analyst Li Wen said.

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