2021 will be a year of tremendous change for the styrene industry. The substantial release of new production capacity, while the market discourse power continues to improve, the operating time line of the device loss is also constantly lengthening, the industry has entered a period of development pains, and the battle for market share will become more and more intense.

Production capacity savage growth

In 2021, the new device is put into operation and the old device is expanded, and the styrene production capacity is savage growth. As of November, China's styrene production capacity was 14.512 million tons, an increase of nearly 20% over the end of last year.

Supported by the release of new plant capacity, styrene production continued to hit a new high. As of the end of October, China's total production of styrene this year exceeded the 10 million tons mark, up 26 percent year on year. Among them, the monthly output in May exceeded 1.1 million tons, the highest for the whole year. However, the pace of expansion of the styrene industry has not stopped. According to statistics, there may be 650,000 tons/year of new capacity released in December, and more than 2 million tons/year of new capacity originally planned to be put into production in the fourth quarter of this year has been postponed to the first half of 2022 for various reasons. It is expected that from 2022 to 2026, China's styrene production capacity under construction will reach more than 10 million tons.

loss time stretched

with China's increasing capacity, imported styrene showed a trend of decline. From 2017 to 2020, China imported a total of 12,199,200 tons of styrene, making it a net importer. But that has changed this year. In the first 10 months, China's total styrene imports were only 1.427,100 tons, down 42.98 percent year on year.

At the same time, due to fierce market competition, bargaining power is weakened, and buyers' right to speak is increased, and the loss period of the styrene industry is extended. Beginning in June this year, the price difference between styrene and raw materials has been narrowed to 1000 yuan (ton price, the same below), and even sometimes only 300~500 yuan, which is rare in the history of styrene, while it was basically maintained at 2000~2500 yuan. In particular, most non-integrated styrene devices fall into a loss situation, and continue to the end of the year, during which some enterprises are unable to bear the burden of high costs to choose to reduce the burden or extend the parking cycle, the industry operating rate for a long time to maintain a relatively low operating state.

""voice"" less

at present China has become the world styrene consumption of the fastest growing countries. In the past two years, along with the ""Belt and Road"" new infrastructure, styrene and downstream once again revitalized. By 2021, China's apparent consumption of styrene is expected to reach 14 million tons; The expected average compound growth rate of China's apparent consumption of styrene from 2017 to 2021 is 6.51%. That being said, the downstream expansion rate is much lower than that of the styrene industry. In 2021, the mainstream downstream polystyrene (PS) industry has no new capacity to put into operation; Acrylonitrile &mdash Butadiene — Styrene copolymer (ABS) industry to increase production capacity of 450,000 tons/year; And 320,000 tons/year of new production capacity of exploitable polystyrene (EPS). It can be seen that the mainstream downstream yield increase of styrene is less.

With the increment of raw material supply, the ""voice"" of styrene in its industrial chain is weakened, from low cost to high cost, while the mainstream downstream maintains a good profit situation.

future remained opportunity

but styrene industry also has important opportunities in the future. There are statistics, 2022~2026 China about 18 sets of a total of 4.76 million tons/year PS device, 16 sets of a total of 7.45 million tons/year ABS device, 12 sets of a total of 2.59 million tons/year EPS device new capacity will be put into production, then the demand for styrene will increase significantly, but ultimately for the styrene industry can boost how much, It also depends on the landing of these projects.