Domestic Calcium Carbide Price Decline in Recent Years

Since mid-November, the price of calcium carbidehas declined as a whole. According to statistics, the price of calcium carbidehas dropped 150-160 CNY/ton by 5.2% at the end of the month compared with the beginning of the month, but it has increased by 14% over the same period of last year. Causes for the decline of calcium carbide: mainly due to the recent sustained decline in PVC prices, a decline of 8.64%, compared with the same period last year, 21.85%. Secondly, the overhaul of the calcium carbide plant has ended, the start-up rate of the plant has steadily increased, the supply of calcium carbide has increased, the downstream arrivals are more abundant, and the downstream enterprises have opened the price reduction mode of pressure cargo.

Because of the increasing environmental pressure in various places, especially in the northwest of Ningxia, the environmental quality situation was reported at the end of November 2017. Among them, the report on environmental air quality (January to November 24) showed that the average proportion of good days in five prefecture-level cities of Ningxia was 76.8%, which decreased by 5 days compared with the same period of last year. Material (PM10) increased by 5% year-on-year, which is the only province in China where the average concentration of PM10 does not decrease but rises. Under the environment of national environmental protection getting better, the environmental pollution in Ningxia area does not decrease but rises. Hearing that all high energy-consuming projects in Zhongwei City have been shut down for one month, according to statistics, five calcium carbide enterprises in Zhongwei City are listed in the shutdown catalogue. At the same time, Shizuishan has opened the most stringent environmental protection and production restriction measures in history. In December, environmental protection in Ningxia is bound to increase, which will have a positive impact on the market of calcium carbide. With the continuous increase of environmental protection, the cost of raw materials used in calcium carbide will continue to rise, especially in some cities with serious air pollution, or a new round of production restriction measures will be opened, which will inevitably have an impact on both calcium carbide and PVC enterprises in China. With the recent rise in the price of PVC, but from the overall demand point of view, the sales of PVC has gradually turned to the off-season, the overall start-up rate of PVC will not increase significantly, and the demand for calcium carbide will remain at the early level. It is expected that the overall domestic calcium carbide market will continue to maintain a stable trend in December, and the price will not show a big ups and downs.