Protect the healthy development of modern coal chemical industry

In the first quarter of this year, the petrochemical industry was severely divided due to the spread of the epidemic and the plunge in oil prices. The trend of chlor-alkali, pharmaceutical intermediates and some new chemical materials is improving, and some chemical fertilizer and refining and chemical companies have improved their profits; while the prices of bulk petrochemical products have fallen sharply, the prices of coal chemical products have been upside down, and enterprises have suffered large losses. Especially modern coal chemical industry represented by coal-to-oil, coal-to-gas, coal-to-olefins, and coal-to-ethylene glycol is in a difficult situation both internally and externally, and enemies.

The two most important indicators of the modern coal chemical industry are crude oil and coal, but these two indicators run counter to each other in the first quarter. On April 1, NYMEX May crude oil futures and Brent June crude oil futures fell to US $ 20.31 / barrel and US $ 24.74 / barrel, both falling by more than 60% from the beginning of March. However, the coal price is still strong. On April 1, the Bohai Rim Thermal Coal Price Index closed at 546 CNY/ton, a drop of only 1.8% from the beginning of March.

According to the estimation of experts, in the case of the reciprocal linkage of domestic coal and international crude oil, the breakeven lines of China's coal-to-oil (gas), coal-to-ethylene glycol, and coal-to-olefins are $ 60 / barrel, $ 50 / barrel, and $ 45, respectively. /barrel. However, under the current price system, the prices of coal and coal chemical products are seriously inverted, and the entire modern coal chemical industry has broken below the profit and loss line.

Taking coal-to-ethylene glycol as an example, the ethylene glycol futures contract on April 1 closed at 2926 CNY/ton, once again refreshing its historical low value, a drop of more than 40% from the beginning of the year; in order to maintain customers, some manufacturers even reported 2800 yuan The limit price per ton, and the current average cost of the industry is about 4500 CNY/ton. To maintain production, companies have to bear a loss of about 2,000 yuan per ton, and production and operation are under tremendous pressure.

At present, there are 3 sets of Henan Coal Industry with a total of 600,000 tons, Hubei Chemical Fertilizer 200,000 tons, Yangmei Coal Pingding 200,000 tons, Xinjiang Tianying 150,000 tons, etc. A total of 1.15 million tons / year coal-to-ethylene glycol plant is shutting down. There may be about 1.2 million tons / year of equipment considering parking. If all the above devices are shut down due to losses, the operating rate of domestic coal-to-ethylene glycol plants will be reduced to about 50%. And these markets vacated by the suspension of production may soon be occupied by foreign manufacturers.

In the past few years, with the increase of petrochemical production capacity in the Middle East, a large amount of ethylene glycol has poured into the country. Last year, the import volume reached 9.947 million tons. Affected by the recent drop in international crude oil prices, the CIF price of foreign petroleum-based ethylene glycol delivered in April was only 2,780 CNY/ton, about 10% lower than the current domestic market price. According to the notice of the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council, ethylene glycol will enjoy tariff reduction and exemption from March 2 onwards. As a result, ethylene glycol on overseas oil routes will have a more cost advantage and will definitely impact the domestic market.

Coal-to-oil and coal-to-gas are China's strategic reserve technologies. Coal-to-olefins and coal-to-ethylene glycol are of great significance for getting rid of foreign crude oil dependence and maintaining China's energy security. At present, domestic coal-to-oil and coal-to-gas projects are all strategic layouts of national energy companies, and other products can still make up for losses. Other modern coal chemical projects are mostly operated by local state-owned enterprises and private enterprises. They are small in scale and relatively weak in risk resistance. Even if the enterprise-level hard work and increased income and savings are not enough to make up for huge losses, once the production has to be stopped due to the breakdown of cash flow, the market that has been operating for many years will no longer exist. The large-scale failure of an enterprise is also related to the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of employees, and it will also cause a waste of a large amount of investment in the early stage.

Therefore, in view of the current situation, in addition to guiding and supporting modern coal chemical enterprises to carry out technological transformation, diversified co-production and extension to the downstream, policy intervention at the national level is also required.