It Has Gone Up By 4000 Yuan In 5 Days! Why Did The Price of Maleic Anhydride Soar?

On December 9, Zhuhai Zhongguan Petrochemical's annual output of 100,000 tons of degradable green new materials project was approved. It is worth noting that this project with a total investment of 1.4 billion yuan has the entire industrial chain from n-butane to maleic anhydride to 1,4-butanediol (BDO).

In fact, since the beginning of this year, in order to further improve market competitiveness, many petrochemical companies such as Qixiang Tengda and Shenghong Petrochemical are deploying the n-butane-Maleic anhydride-BDO-degradable new material industry chain, and the integration of maleic anhydride projects The wave of production is coming quietly.

Tight supply and demand, market prices soaring

"It's going crazy, it's going crazy, it's going up by 4,000 yuan (ton price, the same below) in 5 days!" Recently, the downstream manufacturers of maleic anhydride lamented that the price of maleic anhydride received a higher level in one day. According to statistics from the Business Society, during the week from December 6 to 10, the average price of maleic anhydride ranked first in the price increase list of more than 100 chemical commodities with a weekly increase of 31.17%, an increase of 94.98% over the same period last year. On December 15, the market reference price of maleic anhydride was 17,666.67 yuan, an increase of 39.47% from the beginning of the month.

"The closing price of international crude oil continued to rise, providing momentum for the rise of bulk commodities, and also driving the price of maleic anhydride." According to business analysts, maleic anhydride product analysts believe that in addition to macro factors, maleic anhydride itself has been affected by the epidemic in the near future. , Some devices in Zhejiang have been stopped one after another, and product shipments have been blocked, and factories in other regions have also limited shipments. At the same time, the downstream unsaturated resin industry started to stabilize, and the tight supply and demand caused the price of maleic anhydride to continue to rise. Moreover, since December, the upstream pure benzene market has also ended the downward trend of continuous months of turbulence and has begun to stabilize upward. It has risen by 5.21% since the beginning of the month. The current average market price has reached 6,670 yuan, which has formed a certain degree of benzene maleic anhydride Cost support.

Regarding the trend of the Maleic anhydride market in the later period, the maleic anhydride product analyst of the business agency believes that the current impact of the epidemic still exists, shipments in Zhejiang continue to be blocked, factories in other regions continue to limit shipments, and the on-site supply tension continues. It is expected that the maleic anhydride market will be in the near future. Or oscillate at a high level.

Plastic ban opens up demand space

"At present, on the basis of stable and increasing traditional demand, the application of new degradable materials will open up the potential demand for maleic anhydride." Wei Kai, an analyst at Changjiang Securities, believes that the biodegradable plastic material polyterephthalate-hexamethylene Butylene acrylate (PBAT) and polybutylene succinate (PBS) are all based on maleic anhydride downstream products. Driven by the ban on plastics, with the release of degradable plastic production capacity, the future will gradually Instead of traditional plastics, the application space for maleic anhydride will continue to expand.

BDO downstream of maleic anhydride is one of the important raw materials for PBAT and PBS. According to Wei Kai, with the successive release of new PBAT and PBS production capacity from 2021 to 2024, it will drive up 4.86 million tons of new BDO demand per year. In the same period, the new capacity of BDO is expected to be 3.62 million tons per year. The demand gap of 1.24 million tons/year.

It is worth noting that the current new capacity of BDO is mainly based on the acetylene aldehyde process using Calcium Carbide as a raw material. The development of calcium carbide as a high energy consumption industry is limited. Therefore, whether the currently planned calcium carbide BDO project can be put into production on schedule has yet to be verified. Relatively speaking, the maleic anhydride process is more environmentally friendly and does not belong to a high-energy-consuming industry. If the BDO supply gap in the next 4 years is supplemented by the maleic anhydride process, the demand for maleic anhydride will be about 1.43 million tons per year.

In addition to BDO, maleic anhydride, another downstream succinic acid, is the raw material for PBS production. According to incomplete statistics, if the capacity of PBS in 2024 reaches 1.41 million tons/year, the corresponding raw material succinic acid is about 960,000 tons/year, and if the maleic anhydride method is used for production, the corresponding demand for maleic anhydride will be about 980,000 tons/year. , The new demand will be about 820,000 tons/year.

According to Changjiang Securities' estimates, if the new equipment of PBS and PBAT can be put into production as scheduled, it will boost the demand for BDO and succinic acid, and then drive the potential demand of maleic anhydride of about 2.41 million tons per year.

Integrated projects are favored

"Considering the high price of maleic anhydride, it is not cost-effective to purchase maleic anhydride to produce BDO, and the raw material of maleic anhydride, n-butane, also needs to be purchased. The price and supply are difficult to control, so it comes with the degradable n-butane and maleic anhydride. The new material production chain has certain advantages in terms of cost and ensuring stable supply of raw materials." According to industry insiders, the maleic anhydride method BDO projects newly built this year generally choose the integrated route of n-butane to BDO.

Qixiang Tengda, a leading domestic maleic anhydride company, will actually produce 230,000 tons of maleic anhydride in 2020. The capacity utilization rate has exceeded the designed capacity, and the domestic market share is more than 30%. On November 15th, Qixiang Tengda issued an announcement and signed a "strategic cooperation agreement" with Tianjin Bohua Engineering Co., Ltd. to carry out comprehensive development in the aspects of biodegradable plastic PBS/PBAT, maleic anhydride device energy saving and consumption reduction, maleic anhydride downstream BDO and other downstream aspects. cooperate. In the future, Qixiang Tengda will combine the technological advantages of Tianjin Bohua to directly produce degradable plastics according to market changes, and will be more flexible in the utilization of maleic anhydride production capacity.

Unlike Qixiang Tengda through seeking cooperation to extend the industrial chain, Shenghong Petrochemical adopts direct investment to build a relatively complete industrial chain. On October 14th, Shenghong Petrochemical announced on its official website that the company will invest 7.64 billion yuan to build 340,000 tons/year maleic anhydride, 300,000 tons/year BDO, 180,000 tons/year PBAT and other equipment in Lianyungang Petrochemical Base, and use its own refining The n-butane by-product of the integrated project forms the advantage of integrated production of maleic anhydride.

In addition, the third phase of the Fuqing Jiangyin Zhongjing Petrochemical Science and Technology Park is expected to be fully put into operation in 2024, and will have 800,000 tons/year maleic anhydride and 600,000 tons/year BDO production capacity, which can realize the further extension of the Zhongjing Petrochemical industry chain; Yu New shares issued an announcement on the adjustment of the first phase of the light hydrocarbon comprehensive utilization project on October 27. The company will add another 90,000 tons/year maleic anhydride and 160,000 tons/year BDO capacity. The adjusted project content is 240,000 tons/year Maleic anhydride, 280,000 tons/year BDO, 60,000 tons/year PBAT/PBS and other installations.

It can be seen that with the continuous strengthening of the government's plastic restriction legislation and law enforcement, the increasing public awareness of environmental protection, and the decline in costs brought about by technological progress or government subsidies, there is huge room for future development of new biodegradable materials. The petrochemical giants have already targeted this market opportunity, rushing to lay out the integrated construction of maleic anhydride, in order to get the market dividend of new biodegradable materials as soon as possible.