Affected By The Epidemic, The Mask Factory Has Surged, But Raw Materials Are Rising In Price. What Is The Crux Of The Problem?

The supply of masks has attracted much attention since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia outbreak. And it is the key material for mask filtration. Melt blown cloth is called the "heart" of medical surgical masks and N95 masks.

Recently, due to the huge increase in mask demand, the supply of melt blown fabric is also very tight. The price is even more than ten times, which can be said to be "difficult to find one cloth".

The mask factory has a "cloth difficult to find".

Reporters in the State Council set up the key medical and control materials production supply and demand special area to see, recently appeared a large number of buying mask production meltblown cloth information, the reporter then contacted several of the mask production plant.

Head of a mask manufacturer in Foshan, Guangdong The equipment is in, and every day someone calls to say that the mask has not been made. However, the supply of raw materials (melt blown cloth) is not enough, and production can not be mass produced. It's also a headache.

Director of a mask manufacturer in Tianjin Now the mask factory has built so much at once. Especially during this time, the melt spray cloth becomes more intense at once.

The contradiction between supply and demand of melt blown fabric is also directly reflected in the market price. Besides the government's designated allocation, the price of melt blown cloth on the market has risen from 20 thousand yuan per ton before the epidemic to 30 yuan and 400 thousand yuan per ton.

Head of a mask manufacturer in Foshan, Guangdong It feels like one price per day, three hundred thousand, about four hundred thousand (per ton) price is reported.

Huang Wensheng, the head of a melting cloth manufacturer in Shandong In short supply, melt spray cloth is short, mask manufacturers are too many, and the price of masks is high.

The head of the melt blown fabric manufacturer told reporters that even though the price of melt spray cloth per ton is 400 thousand yuan, the cost of each mask is 0.4 yuan.

Huang Wensheng, the head of a melting cloth manufacturer in Shandong Normally, melt blown materials will account for 60% of the cost of a mask. Now the mask will cost about 3 yuan each, and the cost of melted cloth will account for more than ten percent.

The reporter has learned that the mask production capacity has been greatly improved at this stage. From January 1st to February 7th alone, more than 3000 enterprises in the country have added masks business, and a number of new production enterprises do not have stable supply channels. Market demand and high profit run have helped to increase the tension of melt spraying cloth supply.

The mask is tight and difficult to change.

The shortage of meltblown fabric has become one of the key factors of the tight supply of masks. How to fill this gap? When can this tense situation be alleviated?

As of February 29th, the daily output of domestic masks was about 116 million, which was 12 times that of February 1st. This shows that during this period, The supply of melt blown fabrics has increased significantly, but it has not kept pace with the growth of mask production. How can this supply and demand conflict be solved in the short term?

In Yanshan Petrochemical Company of Beijing, a melted spray production line has just been put into operation, two days ahead of schedule. Staff Liu Haicheng is debugging various indicators to meet the needs of downstream mask production.

Sinopec Yanshan Petrochemical melted spray cloth production line staff Liu Haicheng In the future, we will gradually increase the output through the corresponding technical means and process adjustment. All the production line preparation teams are all fighting for 24 hours.

Liu Haicheng told reporters that the design capacity of the production line was about 6 tons per day, and 1 million ordinary masks were produced per ton of melted cloth. They can produce 6 million masks every day. 。 In addition, their production line also has the polypropylene production capacity of melt blown fabric material, which can quickly meet the need of continuous expansion of melt blown fabric.

Qu Hongliang, deputy general manager of Sinopec Yanshan Petrochemical Company The base material of melt blown fabric production is not a bottleneck. The daily output of melt blown polypropylene material is our capacity of 40 tons per day for 6 tons of melt spraying production line.

From raw materials to masks, there are basically four parts. One is polypropylene raw material; the two is melt blown material; the three is melted spray cloth; four is mask production.

Sinopec spokesman Lv Dapeng In the four link, Melt blown cloth became a barrier lake in the middle and became a place of sticking.

Experts say that the short supply of melt blown fabric is closely related to the investment in the new melt blown equipment and the long construction cycle. The investment of melted cloth factory production line is millions of dollars and tens of millions of yuan. The equipment manufacturing and installation is much more complicated than the mask production device.

Li Lingshen, President of China Industrial Textiles Association The production line also depends on a part of imports. At present, the matching of parts and components is difficult, making the new production line cycle in 3 to 5 months. Therefore, we are not very confident about long-term investment confidence, after all, there will be a large number of spare capacity after the outbreak.

Melt spray cloth is short of substitute material and stable price is put into operation.

Reporters learned from China chemical industry group that, in order to alleviate the tight supply situation of the melt blown fabric market, they recently developed a new alternative material, which has been put into the production of mask.

Assistant director of Technology Department of China Chemical Industry Group It can be equivalent to the isolation ability of N95 or KN95 standard, and its permeability is good, and it can be used many times.

This is called. Expanded polytetrafluoroethylene The new material has been used in high-end fields such as aviation and aerospace, and the price is relatively high. In the near future, the price of melted cloth continues to rise, which has the market promotion conditions.

Yang Maoliang, general manager of Hao Hua technology, China Chemical Industry Group At present, our raw material price is the same as that of melt blown fabric. If we can reuse it, if we put it all on the market, it will play a positive role in stabilizing the market price of the mask.

Li Lingshen, President of China Industrial Textiles Association If there are new technologies, new technologies and new filtering materials, it will also moderate the pressure on the market now.

In addition to the development of alternative products, 10 production lines of melt blown fabric, including the emergency construction of Sinopec, will also be put into operation. The new capacity will be 18 tons per day, that is, the production capacity of 18 million masks.

Jiao Yang, deputy general manager of Sinopec Yanshan Petrochemical Company The next step is to anticipate the size of the two melted sprinklers so that the production can be doubled on the existing basis.

Insiders said that in late March, foreign melt blown fabric resources will also arrive in succession, and the situation of domestic melt spraying cloth shortage will be changed.

Li Lingshen, President of China Industrial Textiles Association It is estimated that by the end of March and early April, we can reach 200 tons of melt blown nonwovens every day, and we can make 200 million to 250 million masks. Now we call it a word. Tight balance, it should be said that the use of temporary emergency can still basically meet.

Sinopec spokesman Lv Dapeng: The factors of the parties will increase the production of melt blown cloth slowly, which will relieve the tension of melt blown fabric and make the price of melt blown fabric rational.