The demand of downstream market is shrinking due to multiple factors

In China, 70% of the products of CALCIUM carbide are used to produce PVC. Some insiders admit that as the "two high and one capital" Calcium Carbide industry, it will decline for a long time in the future. The calcium carbide industry is hard to be optimistic because PVC will suffer from many challenges. " Wang Huimin, general manager of Shenmu coal chemical industry company of Shaanxi coal chemical group, said. The healthy development of PVC by calcium carbide process will not only be restricted by mercury emissions, but also meet multiple challenges such as coal to olefin, imported ethylene / propane to olefin, and imported ethylene, vinyl chloride and so on. According to the statistics of relevant departments, by the end of 2015, the total capacity of coal to olefin (including purchased methanol to olefin) in China will reach 14.5 million tons, the total capacity of ethylene will reach 33.6 million tons, and the self-sufficiency rate of ethylene equivalent consumption will increase to 87%; in 2017, the self-sufficiency rate of ethylene equivalent consumption will exceed 90%.

In addition, the capacity of 2 million tons / year of Imported Ethylene / propane to produce ethylene formed at that time will no longer be in short supply in China. In addition, around 2017, there were 10 million tons / year of low-cost naphtha to ethylene, ethane to ethylene and natural gas condensate (NGL) tubular cracking furnace to olefin projects in the Middle East and North America, which provided the possibility for China to import ethylene and vinyl chloride at a low price. Once the price range of domestic ethylene or imported vinyl chloride moves down, the existing cost advantage of calcium carbide PVC will be lost. The unavoidable problems of environmental pollution and high energy consumption will lead to the decline of PVC competitiveness and market share of calcium carbide process, and the demand for calcium carbide will be greatly reduced. In an interview with reporters, Jin Yong, academician of Chinese Academy of engineering, said that after the industrial application of plasma coal to acetylene technology, it will also have a huge impact on the calcium carbide industry.

The hydrogen plasma coal cracking to acetylene technology jointly developed by Tsinghua University and Xinjiang Tianye Group is in the process of docking with the post sequence vinyl chloride polymerization unit. Once it is successfully applied and popularized, it will gradually replace the carbide acetylene path due to its energy saving, environmental protection, high efficiency and other technical and economic characteristics, reducing the demand of domestic chlor alkali industry for carbide. Hu Haifeng, an expert in chemical industry and member of Shaanxi Provincial decision advisory committee, also said that in theory, calcium carbide can be widely used in the production of lime nitrogen, metal processing, desulfurizer, electric welding acetylene and many other fields. But PVC is the biggest consumption market of calcium carbide, which accounts for about 70% of the total consumption of calcium carbide. Objectively speaking, PVC by calcium carbide process is a process technology that has to be developed under the special historical conditions of serious shortage of ethylene in China, which is essentially a high energy consumption and high pollution process. Although in recent years, the energy consumption and environmental pollution have been reduced by using large-scale closed calcium carbide furnace and tail gas recycling, but due to the low efficiency of energy utilization of acetylene process by calcium carbide process, once the domestic ethylene supply is sufficient and in a reasonable price range in the later stage, the competitiveness of PVC by calcium carbide process will be greatly reduced and the demand for calcium carbide will be greatly reduced.