Against the backdrop of a sharp increase in production capacity, the mismatch between supply and demand in China's polycarbonate industry chain is particularly prominent. The operating rate of enterprises continues to hover at a low level, and the polycarbonate industry will inevitably face a reshaping of its development pattern. Enterprises should take the development of homogenization and differentiation as the starting point and actively respond to challenges. This is the information obtained at the China Polycarbonate Industry Development Summit and the 2nd Council held on June 15th.
According to the Polycarbonate Branch of the China Synthetic Resin Association, since 2019, the domestic polycarbonate production capacity has surged, with an average annual growth rate of 24.7%. As of now, China's polycarbonate production capacity has reached 3.43 million tons/year, making it the world's largest polycarbonate production area. But since 2019, there have been few reports of new polycarbonate production capacity outside the region. It is expected that in 2023, the excess capacity of domestic polycarbonate will be 630000 tons, and the estimated net import of polycarbonate will be around 750000 tons. Therefore, the actual excess capacity of domestic polycarbonate this year may reach 1.38 million tons, accounting for 81% of the global excess capacity.
In recent years, with the surge in production capacity, the focus of polycarbonate enterprises has gone through changes from building new production capacity, to integration, and then to how to digest inventory. "Zhu Qunwei, the sales department manager of Rongsheng Petrochemical, said that homogenization of domestic products is one of the reasons for overcapacity. Therefore, polycarbonate enterprises need to allocate product grades in an orderly manner, achieve dislocation competition, and balance the pressure on various application fields in the industry. For the existing stock of polycarbonate, enterprises can alleviate it by increasing export efforts and other measures. Zhu Qunwei also mentioned that enterprises should strive to improve product quality and find new hotspots for industrial development.
Regarding how polycarbonate enterprises can seek new development opportunities in the context of supply and demand mismatch, all attendees expressed the need to actively explore downstream application scenarios in the industrial chain and achieve differentiated development. This includes but is not limited to fields such as healthcare, new energy vehicles, green energy storage, and mobile energy storage. Wang Guojun, technical service manager of Wanhua Chemical Group, mentioned that optical application will be one of the important high-end application fields of polycarbonate. Optical polycarbonate with special functions such as high cleanliness and high light transmittance can be widely used in fields such as lamp mask, light guide, optical lens, optical lens, etc.
At the same time, many downstream enterprises in the industrial chain have expressed their demand for polycarbonate.
Duan Qingsheng, General Manager of Xiamen Shidi Medical Technology Co., Ltd., mentioned that medical plastics are less popular materials in market scenarios, while polycarbonate has advantages such as high transparency and high resistance, which can precisely meet the requirements of medical plastic products such as high-pressure syringes and surgical masks. In the future, the demand for polycarbonate in the medical health industry will further increase.
Zhu Yi, Director of the Materials and Lightweight Research Institute of China FAW Research and Development Institute, and Meng Tao, Solution Manager of Jinhu Rili Automotive Industry, both mentioned that the application of polycarbonate in the automotive industry will become increasingly widespread; Zhu Yun, the R&D project director of Lenovo, said that the demand for polycarbonate materials in the notebook industry will be higher and higher.
Establishment of Polycarbonate Circular Economy Working Group
On June 15th, the Polycarbonate Circular Economy Working Group of the China Synthetic Resin Association was established in Wuxi, Jiangsu, and launched the declaration on green development in the industry.
The meeting pointed out that climate change is a serious challenge facing humanity, and green, low-carbon and sustainable development advocates the recycling of resources in production, circulation, consumption, and recycling to address climate change. Plastic recycling is an important practice for green, low-carbon, and sustainable development. In response to the national goal of "double carbon", the Polycarbonate Branch of China Synthetic Resin Association launched the green development declaration of the industry, including reducing the use of original fossil resources in the industry, promoting enterprises to adopt the Ecological design concept of circular economy from the source, and actively promoting the recycling and reuse of polycarbonate; Guide the industry to bravely climb the technological peak, actively carry out innovation in green recycling technology for polycarbonate materials, in order to improve recycling rates, standardize recycling management and traceability, and enhance the quality of recycled polycarbonate; Actively build a green and low-carbon Carbon cycle industrial chain of the industry, strengthen the use, promotion and publicity of recycled plastics, establish and improve the relevant green industry policy system, and promote the establishment of relevant industry standards.
It is reported that the start-up members of the working group include 7 enterprises, namely Covestro (Shanghai) Investment Co., Ltd., Wanhua Chemical Group Group Co., Ltd., SABIC, Shengxiao Polymer Co., Ltd., Beijing Sinopec Yanshan Petrochemical Polycarbonate Co., Ltd., Shanghai Auxerre Material Technology Co., Ltd., and Ningbo Jianfeng New Material Co., Ltd.