Prices Surged And Profits Surged? Melt Blown Fabric Manufacturers Have Something To Say

Recently, as the core material of masks, the melt blown fabric is "fire".

Because of the shortage of supply and rapid price increase, melt blown fabric has recently formed a very strong seller's market. "Except for melt blown cloth, everything else is easy to say." Recently, the price of the meltblown fabric is at least 200 thousand yuan per ton. And two weeks ago, we purchased 80 thousand yuan / ton, the highest is 120 thousand yuan / ton. A producer said that although the price of materials such as ear bands and nose bars is rising, the supply of goods is not in short supply. Only melt spray cloth forms a very strong seller's market.

Well, Why does melt blown fabric price rise so fast? What is the current production capacity? Why not expand production on a large scale? When can we meet the needs of mask production? Melt spray cloth manufacturers also have a stomachs to say...

Why is the demand for melt blown fabric so surging?

In the face of surging demand, what is the current capacity of the melt blown fabric?

Melt blown fabric is a key material for virus filtration by respirators. It is called the "heart" of medical surgical masks and N95 masks. Medical surgical masks usually use multi-storey structures. The inner and outer sides are single layer spunbonded layers, and the middle is single layer or multi-layer melt blown layer. Melt blown cloth is the best material for melt blown layer. Melt blown fabric takes polypropylene as the main raw material, and the diameter of the fiber can reach 1-5 microns.

According to the statistics of China Industrial Textiles Association, the total output of China's nonwovens was about 6 million 200 thousand tons in 2019, an increase of 4.5% over the same period last year. Among them, the total output of spunbonded nonwovens was about 3 million 100 thousand tons, an increase of 5% over the same period last year, accounting for 50% of the total output of nonwoven fabrics, and the total output of meltblown nonwovens was about 55 thousand tons, up 2% over the same period last year, accounting for 0.88% of the total output of nonwoven fabrics. The products are mainly used in the fields of filter materials, oil absorbing materials, sound absorbing and thermal insulation materials, battery separator and so on. Under normal circumstances, the melt blown fabric used for masks production is about 10 thousand tons a year, and its market demand has been relatively stable for a long time. Under normal circumstances, 1 tons of melt blown cloth can produce 100-120 flat respirators or 30-40 medical respirators.

In the early days of the epidemic, a large number of existing masks and melted nonwovens manufacturers in the industry actively cooperate with the government to allocate high quality and good prices to ensure the supply of anti epidemic materials. At the present stage, due to the large increase in the productivity of masks, a batch of new production enterprises, because of the lack of stable supply channels, have fuelled the melt injection under the stimulation of market demand and high profits. Nonwoven The tension of cloth supply.

In addition, it is important to note that the demand for masks will continue to increase with the gradual resumption of business and school opening.

Why can't melt blown fabric expand in large quantities?

Since the mask production line has been put into operation in large numbers, why do manufacturers not take the opportunity to expand the production capacity of melted cloth? When can we ease the tight supply of raw materials for masks?

China Textile Industry Association data show that melted nonwovens equipment investment is large, construction cycle is long (at least 3-4 months, normal for more than half a year), plus debugging, formal production is longer.

According to the insiders, compared with the mask production line, the investment is small, the technical content is not high, the replication is fast and easy to operate, and the technology content of melted spray cloth is relatively high. The quality of the melted cloth directly determines the quality of the respirator. The investment of the cloth production line is millions of millions and tens of millions of yuan. Specialized training.

At present, there are not many manufacturers supplying the complete sets of production equipment and key parts of melt blown fabrics in China. The production of core components such as spinneret and spinneret is still quite different from that of foreign manufacturers, and the delivery cycle and assembly time of imported equipment are relatively long.

The procurement cycle for several months has limited the delivery capability of melt blown equipment, making it difficult to market overnight as a mask machine. It is understood that a number of sales of melted cloth production plant is using a small number of spare parts and components, rapid assembly of new production lines. But the design, processing and commissioning of a complete production line will take two or three months.

A supplier of melted cloth production equipment in Zhejiang said that the production line of melted spray cloth was really introduced, and the demand peak of the epidemic is long past. This worry has also hindered many investors from entering this field. ? The scale of the melt blown fabric market is not large. Once the epidemic is over, the competition pressure of melt blown fabric producers will be very great.

The responsible person of a melted cloth spraying enterprise introduced that the enterprise had two melted shotcrete equipment in 2016, which can be said to be the most advanced in China. However, due to the small scale of the market, the operating rate of the enterprise was seriously insufficient, and it was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2019.

For the recent surge in the price of melted cloth, many people in the industry believe that there is a large number of mask machines on the line, and there is a shortage of melt spraying cloth, and the rising price is the natural law of the market. Although the price of melted cloth is high, the cost of masks is not high. An insider calculated a cost account: 1 tons of melt spray cloth can make 1 million surgical surgical masks. If calculated by 200 thousand / ton, the cost of melted cloth will be only 0.2 yuan in the cost of a mask.

Another person in charge of the enterprise suggested that, regardless of medical melted cloth or civilian melt spraying cloth, special departments should be unified in the special period to make sure that the goods are actually in the hands of the terminal manufacturers, so as to avoid the rising prices of middlemen.

Mining capacity and developing alternative materials

Insiders pointed out that strengthening the industrial chain planning, mining the potential of related enterprises and leading enterprises, and maximizing the melt spraying cloth production capacity is imperative.

At present, the market trend of melt blown nonwovens is mainly following changes: on the basis of the original more than 30 tons of masks melted nonwovens on the basis of the original production, the first one is the melt blown production enterprise which originally produces automobile noise insulation materials, thermal insulation materials and oil absorbing materials. Through the technical transformation, some of the masks are converted to masks, and the daily output can reach 100 tons. Two is the original production of SMS (spunbonded melt blown composite). Weaving enterprises adjust production technology, the daily capacity of about 60 tons, three is represented by Sinopec and other central enterprises, also accelerate investment and construction of melt spraying cloth production line, effectively increase certain capacity.

China National Chemical Industry Group's Zhong Hao morning light hospital has independently developed high-tech materials known as expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (e-PTFE) microfiltration membrane, which can replace melt blown cloth, and can withstand water washing, disinfection and other procedures, so that it can be used repeatedly.

In March 6th, Sinopec and the national machine group successfully built the first new melted spray production line in China since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia. The annual design capacity of the production line is 14400 tons, including two melt blown non-woven production lines and 3 spunbonded cloth production lines. At present, it can produce 4 tons of N95 melt spray cloth or 6 tons of medical flat mask melt spray cloth every day, which can produce about 1 million 200 thousand N95 mask or about 6 million medical flat respirators.

On the whole, melt blown nonwovens can reach about 200 tons per day, which can meet about 200 million flat respirators or 60 million medical masks. The total amount can meet the minimum demand. The current shortage of melt blown nonwovens is caused by many factors such as short term production capacity of melt blown nonwovens and high productivity of downstream masks.

Although the capacity of melt blown nonwovens has been released most, the price is rising rapidly due to the contradiction between supply and demand. This is mainly due to the increase of factor cost (raw materials, electricity, employment, transportation, etc.), and the two is the increase in production cost. On the one hand, the original melt blown nonwovens lose a lot from thick to thin, and the cost of retrofit is higher. Over the SMS composite production line process transformation, shutting down the S layer to produce M layer alone, is a high allocation and low utilization (M layer weight is low, only about 10%), the capacity loss is high, the transformation cost is high; three is the circulation area increases the price more, under the masks shortage economy high profit and the raw material supply insufficient pre time influence, also can cause the melt spray cloth price to rise rapidly.

China's industrial textile industry association is also calling on enterprises in the industry to respond positively to the national call, giving priority to quality and high price to ensure the supply of national emergency protection materials. Under the premise of ensuring product quality, we must strictly control production costs, reduce circulation links, eliminate market speculation, maintain market order and demonstrate social responsibilities.

Melt blown nonwoven process, as a special molding technology of high melting point microfiber, has not been given enough attention by the state and society. After this outbreak, the association suggested that the state should give some protective policies to the emergency material idle capacity.

The epidemic is an order. We believe that all these efforts will greatly alleviate the shortage of meltblown fabric and help the country win the battle against epidemic diseases from the source.