Three major problems in the methanol industry

At the 3rd methanol-dimethyl ether/liquefied petroleum gas industry chain market summit held in Shanghai on June 23 and the 2010 China methanol gasoline market seminar, Feng Shiliang, an analyst of the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation, predicted that the methanol dilemma will be Continued to the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan”: “At the end of 2010, China’s methanol production capacity will reach at least 29.534 million tons, and the output is expected to be only 14.8 million tons. The operating rate is optimistic and can only reach 50%. The methanol industry is currently in a serious overcapacity and the competition is heating up. The situation." The methanol market dilemma is not only these...

I. Methanol investigation period is extended Domestic methanol companies are worried about it

On June 24, the Ministry of Commerce issued an investigation on the import of methanol originating in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Indonesia and New Zealand until December 24, 2010. After the methanol company was informed of the news, they expressed concern.

Ou Xiaoming, deputy general manager of Zhejiang Jinju Chemical Co., Ltd. worried that: "The results of the methanol investigation will not be released, I am afraid that it will encourage the investigation to continue to methanol in China, and will stimulate more participation not included in the investigation, thus making domestic methanol Enterprises have been hit hard. By then, not only will the investment of hundreds of billions of yuan be difficult to recover, but even social problems will arise from the unemployment of more than 100,000 industrial workers."

Shi Baojun, deputy general manager of Shanxi Lanzhou Danfeng Chemical Co., Ltd. said that from January to May this year, China imported methanol equivalent to one third of the total domestic methanol production in the same period. The influx of a large amount of low-priced methanol has intensified the contradiction between the oversupply of the domestic methanol market, the continuous low price of methanol, and the increasing losses in the industry. At present, except for a very small number of methanol enterprises that use coke oven gas as raw materials, the domestic coal head and gas head enterprises have already suffered a total loss. If the measures cannot be introduced as soon as possible, the domestic methanol industry will encounter even greater disasters.

2. Middle East methanol prices are low, forcing some domestic gas methanol plants to stop production

The rise in natural gas prices has led to an increase in the price of coal and electricity for energy products, which has led to an overall increase in domestic methanol costs, further widening the cost gap between methanol in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Before 2009, methanol production capacity developed rapidly. The national methanol production capacity increased rapidly from 3.864 million tons in 1999 to 28 million tons in 2009, with an average annual growth rate of 25%. However, this hot development momentum has suddenly experienced twists and turns in 2009, and the operating rate of enterprises has fallen below 30%. Although the methanol market recovered from January to April this year, the overall operating rate is still only about 50%.

The weapon of Middle East methanol knocking open the door of the Chinese market is its low price. Recently, the prices of methanol from Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries have reached only 2,000 yuan / ton, which forced the domestic methanol ex-factory price to generally fall to 1800-2200 yuan / ton, and the cost is reversed. Haotianhua Luyuan Alcohol Co., Ltd. 400,000 tons / year, Blue Star Lanzhou Company 200,000 tons / year, Pingmei Blue Sky Chemical Co., Ltd. 800,000 tons / year and many other gas head methanol plants have been discontinued, some coal head methanol enterprises also Ready to stop production. At present, the operating rate of methanol plants nationwide has dropped from about 60% before May to about 50%, and the loss-making enterprises have exceeded 90%.

3. Methanol production capacity increased, methanol prices fell

Since 2010, due to the continued sluggish fertilizer market, the price of fertilizers of many hydrazine enterprises has been lower than the cost of SMEs using anthracite lump as raw materials for a long time, forcing the diol enterprises to reduce the load of fertilizer plants, increase the load of methanol plants, and increase methanol production. In addition, several sets of large-scale methanol plants that were put into operation in the third quarter to the fourth quarter of the year have achieved continuous and high-load production through leakage reduction, running-in and parameter optimization. Recently, after the increase in natural gas prices, the enthusiasm of natural gas producers has been stimulated, and the amount of industrial gas has been increased. Many methanol companies that failed to reduce production due to insufficient gas supply have not only resumed production, but some have also achieved The rare high-load production in the end has greatly increased the domestic methanol production capacity, and the oversupply has been highlighted, suppressing the price down.