Business Society: Both Supply and Demand Weak, Costs Hard to Sustain—Bisphenol A Set for Volatile Decline in 2025

December 29th News

In 2025, the Chinese bisphenol A market showed a core characteristic of "weak supply and demand, and insufficient cost support," with price fluctuations and downward trends as the main theme. The Chinese bisphenol A market in 2025 exhibited a downward trend throughout the year, with only a temporary rebound at the end of the year. On January 1st, the market price of bisphenol A was 9,537 CNY/ton. As of December 29th, the benchmark price of bisphenol A was 7,604.00 CNY/ton, a decrease of over 20% from the beginning of the year. The lowest price within the year reached 7,090 CNY/ton, reflecting the core issues of supply-demand contradiction and insufficient cost support in the industry.

Capacity Redundancy Leads to Phased Contraction, Overall Loose Situation Remains Unchanged

In 2025, the industry's operating rate remained at a relatively high level of around 80%, with overall market supply being loose due to excess capacity. Despite a temporary supply contraction at the end of the year (December), where Changchun Chemical and Nantong Starlight reduced their operations to 50-60% capacity, Nan Ya Plastics (Ningbo) shut down its first phase plant for maintenance, and Shandong Fuyu Petrochemical's 180,000 tons/year facility was shut down until January 2026, leading to a reduction in market supply by about 15% compared to normal levels and a 5.93% rebound in prices, this contraction was a short-term disruption due to maintenance and could not change the core pattern of a loose supply throughout the year.

Weak downstream demand drags on essential needs, and phased replenishment orders are unlikely to reverse the downward trend.

Two major downstream industries' weak performance constituted the core suppression on the demand side in 2025. On one hand, the PC industry was affected by the sluggish export of electronic and electrical products and the low demand for traditional household appliances, resulting in a full-year operating rate below 75%. Although there was some growth in high-end PC demand due to the lightweighting of new energy vehicles and the construction of 5G base stations, it was not enough to offset the overall demand gap. On the other hand, the epoxy resins industry faced a double impact from the shrinking demand in traditional coatings (the share decreased from 61% to 39%) and the substitution by bio-based materials. The growth in high-end areas such as wind power and electronic packaging could not make up for the decline in traditional markets. Throughout the year, downstream enterprises generally adopted a low-inventory strategy, with only a short-term demand surge at the end of the year due to the need to catch up on production. However, the final consumption did not follow suit, and the market quickly returned to weakness after the replenishment orders were completed, confirming the core characteristic of "weak demand reality."

Raw material prices hit a five-year low, rendering the cost support logic ineffective.

In 2025, the volatile and weak trend in the raw material market caused cost support to lose its effectiveness. Downward fluctuations in upstream crude oil prices, coupled with a relaxed supply-demand balance in the pure benzene market, continued to push phenol and acetone prices lower, resulting in an average annual price decline of over 10% compared to the previous year. Although coal-to-olefins routes are 15%–20% cheaper than petroleum-based routes, providing Chinese enterprises with some cost cushion, the overall weakness at the raw material end has been transmitted to the bisphenol A segment, leaving companies without a solid basis for raising prices and further reinforcing the downward price trend.

In 2026, from the supply perspective, the release of new capacities will further increase supply pressure. Of the 3.8 million tons of global bisphenol A capacity under construction in 2025, 73% is located in China, with key projects such as Wanhua Chemical in Yantai (600,000 tons/year) and Gulei in Fujian (500,000 tons/year) expected to gradually commission in 2026, pushing China's capacity to exceed 7 million tons. As maintenance units like Shandong Fuyu Petrochemical restart in January 2026, market supply will gradually recover, and the mismatch between supply and demand is expected to improve. However, the concentrated release of new capacities will further intensify industry competition, and the industry's operating rate is projected to drop to around 75%, with a continued loose supply situation. At the same time, leading companies, leveraging their technological advantages (such as ionic liquid catalyst technology, which reduces energy consumption per ton by 19%) and cost advantages, will further squeeze the market share of smaller and medium-sized capacities, potentially increasing industry concentration.

On the demand side, the performance of bisphenol A demand in 2026 will depend on the pace of macroeconomic recovery and the speed of expansion in downstream high-end sectors. In the short term, after the surge in restocking demand at year-end subsides, demand in the first quarter of 2026 may revert to a weaker level. In the medium term, if real estate policies are relaxed and exports of electronic and electrical appliances rebound, this will marginally boost demand for epoxy resins and conventional PC. In the long term, high-end sectors will remain the key driver of demand growth: the lightweighting trend in new-energy vehicles will fuel the growth of modified PC demand, with an estimated annual increase of 120,000 tons; the construction of 5G base stations will lead to a sharp rise in demand for low-dielectric constant PC materials; and medical-grade PC applications—in areas such as disposable pulse oximeters—will grow at a rate of 23%. Moreover, the expanding demand in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia could provide some support for China's bisphenol A exports.

Looking ahead, the core contradiction in the BPA market in 2026 will continue to be the interplay between “overcapacity and insufficient demand recovery.” The market trend is likely to follow a pattern of “initial weakness followed by stabilization and volatile adjustments”: In the first quarter, prices may fall back to low levels due to resumed supply and weak demand; if downstream demand shows marginal improvement in the second and third quarters, prices could stage a temporary rebound; in the fourth quarter, factors such as year-end restocking and fluctuations in raw material prices may cause short-term market disruptions. The annual price center is expected to decline slightly compared to 2025, with particular attention focused on fluctuations within the range of 7,000 to 8,000 CNY per ton. In the later period, three key factors warrant close monitoring: First, the commissioning progress of newly added capacity may exceed expectations, significantly increasing supply pressure; second, the macroeconomic recovery may fall short of expectations, leaving downstream demand persistently weak; and third, unexpected factors such as geopolitical conflicts and intensified environmental policies could have a significant impact on the market.