Contradictions between supply and demand highlight support for calcium carbide

"Since this year, the price of CALCIUM carbidehas been hovering at a low level. The ex-factory price in Yulin once bottomed 1 800 yuan (ton price, the same below). At present, it is about 2,000 yuan. The average start-up rate of the plant is only 55%. Most enterprises have lost money. As the contradiction between supply and demand is still prominent, international oil prices continue to fall, and it is expected that the Calcium Carbide market will not improve in the later period. On December 17, Lei Junku, the trade union chairman of Shenmu Energy Development Company, and Tian Xiaobin, the financial director of Shenmu Coal Chemical Industry Electrochemical Company, all expressed their pessimism about the late trend of the stone market. The medium and long term trend of calcium carbide market is hard to say and optimistic, which has become the consensus of the industry.

Overcapacity forms a long-term constraint. China's calcium carbide industry has experienced a "golden period" of development synchronously, stimulated by the sustained sharp rise in international oil prices, rapid growth of domestic economy and strong demand for calcium carbide by the surge in downstream PVC production capacity during the period from the 10th Five-Year Plan to the early 12th Five-Year Plan. In 2013, domestic capacity and output of calcium carbide reached 37.9 million tons and 22.34 million tons respectively. In 2014, although the international oil price has turned downward and the domestic economy has changed from high-speed growth to medium-high-speed growth, it has not aroused the vigilance of relevant enterprises, and the new calcium carbide projects are still increasing. According to Jiang Shunping, Director of Information Department of China Calcium Carbide Industry Association, the annual production capacity of domestic calcium carbide will reach 41.83 million tons by the end of 2014, an increase of 10.4% over the previous year, and 44 million tons by the end of this year. However, the total domestic demand for calcium carbide is difficult to exceed 27 million tons. According to the international standard for the healthy development of industry, the utilization rate of equipment is 85%. It is estimated that the production capacity of calcium carbide in China has exceeded 30%. The serious overcapacity has become the biggest and long-term hidden danger for the calcium carbide market to go well. As long as the price of calcium carbide rises slightly and is profitable, many idle devices will resume production, increase market supply and suppress the price downturn.

The depressed demand depressed the price rise. Although calcium carbide can be used in many fields such as 1,4- butanediol, Vinyl Acetate / polyvinyl alcohol, calcium cyanamide, neoprene, acetylene black, dissolved acetylene, steelmaking desulfurization, calcium carbide method PVC, etc., because calcium carbide method accounts for more than 80% of the total consumption of calcium carbide, the carbide market is still mainly bad for the carbide PVC has the final say.

According to Zhang Wenlei, Vice-President and Secretary-General of China Chlor-Alkali Industry Association, the trend of continuous price decline in domestic PVC market since this year has been affected by insufficient start-up rate of downstream pipe and profile enterprises and excess capacity. In the first three quarters, the production of PVC in China was 12.12 million tons, down 0.5% year on year. Due to the serious cost inversion, about 40% of chlor-alkali enterprises in China have lost money. Jiang Kejun, a researcher at the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, believes that the peak period of domestic real estate development has passed, the growth rate of infrastructure investment will continue to slow down significantly, and the demand intensity for PVC tubes/profiles will decrease, taking into account factors such as domestic commercial housing inventory, future population growth rate and suitable housing area per capita. Weak or even shrinking, forcing chlor-alkali enterprises to continuously reduce the load rate or stop production, and then reduce the demand for calcium carbide, aggravating the contradiction between supply and demand in the calcium carbide market, piezoelectric price is difficult to rise.

Raw material price reduction drags down the price. Among the total cost of calcium carbide, electricity cost accounts for about 55%, blue carbon + white ash for about 25%, and labor and other costs account for about 20%. With the popularization of large-scale sealed calcium carbide furnaces and the improvement of industry concentration, the grouping and upstream and downstream integration pattern of the calcium carbide industry has been formed, which not only greatly improves the utilization rate of resources, reduces the emission of pollutants, but also greatly reduces the comprehensive cost of enterprises. At present, about 10% of the enterprises have formed coal-electricity-calcium carbide-chlor-alkali integrated industrial cluster; one third of the calcium carbide enterprises have built the blue carbon-power generation-lime-calcium carbide industrial chain; more than 60% of the enterprises have made comprehensive use of the tail gas of the calcium carbide furnace, thus greatly reducing the production cost of calcium carbide. Taking the enterprises with the industrial chain of blue carbon-power generation-white ash-calcium carbide as an example, the cost of white ash is less than 150 yuan, the cost of blue carbon is about 400 yuan, and the cost of self-generation is less than 0.15 yuan/kWh (in order to encourage circular economy and promote economic development in many Western provinces, enterprises are allowed to use more than 80% of their own electricity).

Only these three raw material costs are more independent than those of other provinces. Calcium carbide enterprises are nearly 1000 yuan low. Later, with the strictness of environmental protection and energy saving regulations, the improvement of industry concentration and resource utilization rate, and the impact of overcapacity price of orchid and charcoal or continuous low-level operation, the cost level of raw materials and accessories used in the production of calcium carbide industry will decline as a whole, dragging down the price of calcium carbide. The impact of the new law on the industry is aggravated. "In addition to the above disadvantages, the implementation of other process routes and the enhancement of competitiveness will also occupy the downstream consumption area of calcium carbide, making the original depressed calcium carbide Market worse." Jin Yong, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, cautioned. He said, on the one hand, because of the breakthrough in exploration and development technology and weak demand, international oil prices will still bottom and continue to operate at a low level, so that the cost of ethylene and PVC in oil routes will continue to decline, even comparable to that of calcium carbide PVC. The oil route PVC is cleaner, more environmentally friendly and more fully utilized. With the increasing pressure of domestic environmental protection, its comprehensive competitiveness will be significantly higher than that of calcium carbide PVC, gradually recapturing the market share once occupied by calcium carbide PVC. On the other hand, the rapid expansion of coal-based olefin production capacity in China will also provide more low-cost and sufficient ethylene raw materials for chlor-alkali enterprises. More enterprises will build another coal-based chemical production path different from calcium carbide PVC by building coal-based olefin-chlor-alkali recycling economy industrial chain, which will impact the traditional calcium carbide PVC process. Strike to reduce the demand for calcium carbide.