China’s Acetone Market in 2025 Continues to Decline, Constantly Reaching New Lows

December 26th News

In 2025, the Chinese acetone market entered a deep adjustment cycle, with prices for the entire year showing a "volatile downward trend and continuous bottoming out" weak pattern. According to monitoring data, by the end of 2025, the annual cumulative price decrease in the Chinese acetone market reached 32.37%, with prices continuously falling from the beginning of the year's high of 5992 CNY/ton. By the end of the year, the mainstream market price in East China had dropped to around 4050 CNY/ton, hitting a six-year low. This significant decline was the inevitable result of multiple factors including a mismatch between supply and demand during the industry expansion cycle, weakened cost support, and negative feedback in the industrial chain, having a profound impact on the upstream and downstream industrial ecology of acetone.

In 2025, the price trend of acetone in China’s market can be divided into three distinct downward phases, with price declines persisting throughout the year and gradually widening. The first phase, from the beginning of the year to the end of the second quarter, was a “slow-down period.” Affected by weaker-than-expected demand recovery following the Spring Festival, market prices gradually fell from 6,300 CNY per ton in January to 5,500 CNY per ton by the end of June, representing a cumulative price decrease of 12.69% for the first half of the year. Market transactions were mainly driven by essential demand, and traders adopted a cautious attitude. The second phase, in the third quarter, was an “accelerated decline period.” The traditional peak season of “Golden September” failed to materialize, and coupled with a concentrated arrival of imported shipments that led to a sharp rise in inventories, prices rapidly plunged to 4,800 CNY per ton. In the third quarter alone, prices fell by 12.73%, marking the first time the industry experienced widespread losses. The third phase, in the fourth quarter, was a “low-level oscillation period,” during which prices fluctuated narrowly within the range of 4,000 to 4,300 CNY per ton. Although there were signs of temporary stabilization at times, due to insufficient support from underlying supply and demand fundamentals, prices ultimately closed at 4,050 CNY per ton by year-end, with the full-year cumulative price decline settling at 32.37%.

Supply Side: Concentrated Release of Production Capacity Coupled with Import Supplements, Setting the Tone for a Loose Supply Situation in China

In 2025, China's acetone industry is still in the tail end of a high-speed expansion cycle, with the concentrated release of new production capacity becoming the core pressure on the supply side. According to statistics, in 2025, China's net increase in acetone production capacity is 510,000 tons/year, with total production capacity exceeding 4,480,000 tons/year. Among these, a 200,000 tons/year facility in Shandong and a 60,000 tons/year facility in Zhejiang were successfully commissioned at the end of the third quarter to the beginning of the fourth quarter, directly leading to a 15%-20% quarter-on-quarter increase in market supply. At the same time, the elimination of outdated production capacity did not meet expectations, with only 100,000 tons/year of outdated capacity from Yanshan Petrochemical and Jilin Petrochemical being phased out throughout the year, providing limited relief to the supply side.

The continuous supplementation of the import market further exacerbated the loose supply situation. In 2025, the annual import volume of acetone remained high, with 50,000 tons of imported cargo arriving at East China ports in December alone, of which 26,000 tons had already arrived, and 24,000 tons were still in transit. Port inventory remained at a relatively high level of 24,000 tons, effectively filling the temporary gap in domestic supply. Even as some phenol and acetone facilities in China entered the traditional maintenance season, with operating rates dropping to the second-lowest point of the year at 65%, the maintenance periods were generally short (15-20 days), and companies had stockpiled supplies before the maintenance, failing to fundamentally change the fundamental situation of oversupply.

Demand Side: Downstream Weakness Spreads, Core Consumption Areas Lack Sufficient Support

The persistent weakness in downstream demand for acetone, with core downstream industries generally facing supply-demand imbalance pressures, has kept the procurement demand for acetone at just the necessary level. As the largest consumer of acetone, the bisphenol A (BPA) industry, although still in an expansion phase in 2025, is affected by the weak demand from the downstream polycarbonate and epoxy resins industries, maintaining low operating rates. Acetone purchases are made only to replenish inventory as needed, failing to provide effective pull. Although the consumption share remains stable at around 36%, the absolute demand growth rate has slowed to 0.8%. The second-largest downstream industry, the MMA industry using the acetone cyanohydrin method, also shows weak performance. Due to the underwhelming expansion of the new energy photovoltaic components and high-end display industries, the demand growth for acetone has significantly declined compared to previous years. The MIBK industry, due to intensified supply-demand contradictions, has seen a price drop of 300 CNY/ton from November, with strong downward pressure from downstream buyers, further weakening the support for acetone demand. Additionally, the traditional solvent sector, impacted by stricter environmental policies and competition from substitute products, has seen a continuous decline in demand. The combined weak performance across multiple industries has led to a lack of incremental momentum in the acetone market demand.

Cost Side: Raw material prices have weakened, significantly reducing the strength of cost support.

For acetone producers, non-integrated enterprises are the most affected, with continuous losses leading to a passive reduction in their operating rates, and market share gradually concentrating towards integrated enterprises. By 2025, the vertical integration rate of China's acetone production capacity has increased to 71%. Integrated enterprises, with their advantages in pipeline logistics costs and the ability to offset profits upstream and downstream, have significantly stronger risk resistance, but the overall decline in the industry's profitability is still unavoidable.

Here are the acetone quotation situations in major mainstream markets across the country: