N-butanol/octanol: Butanol Market events in 2021

1. In 2021, the domestic butanol market will create a "super rise"

From the fourth quarter of 2020 to the whole year of 2021, the domestic butanol market created a historic rise. The mismatch between supply and demand intensifies as the downstream demand especially the external demand such as glove materials and solvents increases substantially. While foreign butanol devices such as South Korea LG, Formosa Plastics and other concentrated parking maintenance, including domestic production restrictions and other factors, the market thus created a long period of soaring prices, and once appeared a weekly rise of more than 20% of the highest record.

Under the combined action of internal and external factors in the industrial chain, the market has gone out of the rare unilateral soaring market for many years. The most important is driven by the strong recovery of demand from the downstream and terminal, especially the new DOTP capacity in the downstream of octanol is fully released, and the demand side of butanoctanol continues to drive, resulting in a historic rise in butanoctanol industry mismatch. The supply end of the industrial chain was severely damaged due to repeated outbreaks and extreme weather abroad, while orders for downstream and terminal products rose sharply. After the Spring Festival of 2021, the market of butanol soared successively, with the price rising by 1850 yuan/ton and 2300 yuan/ton respectively in the two days after the festival. The second stage, in April 2021 - August, due to the increasing domestic demand orders growth significantly, at the same time, butyl octyl alcohol domestic enterprises concentrated repair factors, such as overlay, again again into the unilateral butyl octyl alcohol markets jumped cycle, superposition of two period, butyl octyl alcohol rising cycle lasts for more than six months, octyl alcohol from the lows of earlier this year to nearly $19000 tons, the highest The accumulated increase is close to 10000 yuan/ton, or more than 100%. After the third quarter, the market began to decline step by step. In 2021, the annual average price of n-butanol and octanol in the domestic main port market will be 12,710 yuan/ton and 14,430 yuan/ton, up by 106% and 93% respectively compared with that of the whole year in 2020.

2. China's butanoctanol output will hit a new high in 2021

In 2021, except for the newly built 40,000 tons/year n-butanol plant in Zibo Nuo, there is basically no increase in domestic butanol capacity. After the concentrated release of new capacity in 2011-2018, the release of new butanol capacity in China has been almost stalled since 2018, with only shaanxi Yanchang and Jiangsu Huachang capacity expansion plant successively put into production. But in 2021 because of butyl octyl alcohol industry profit space is very rich and strong demand, manufacturers generally full power production, more delay overhaul efforts to increase production, and even through the production process improvement, keep production device run overload for a long period of time, so domestic butyl octyl alcohol production and industry in 2021 the average capacity utilization to an all-time high.

In 2021, the domestic production capacity of butanol will reach 2.67 million tons and 2.78 million tons respectively, unchanged from the previous year. However, the total output of butanol in 2021 will reach 2.23 million tons and 2.36 million tons respectively, up 47.3% and 21.6% significantly from the previous year, and the annual average operating rate will remain above 86%. Although in recent years, new butanol production capacity will be added in 2022-2025, it is expected that the domestic butanol production capacity will burst again. It is estimated that a total of about 3 million tons of new butanol production capacity will be released, and the domestic butanol industry will usher in a vigorous development cycle again.

3. In 2021, butanol industry earnings hit a record high

In 2021, butanol created a historic rise, while the industry's profit level increased simultaneously, reaching a historical peak level, even higher than the historical high from 2005 to 2008. At that time, the market was still in a state of serious shortage of domestic resources, highly monopolized industry and self-sufficiency of upstream propylene. Therefore, the independent rising market of butanol in 2021 promoted the profitability of butanol to a historic high -- the average gross profit of butanol in the first three quarters of 2021 reached more than 7,000 yuan/ton, and the highest level was close to 10,000 yuan. According to the data of octanol production and operating rate, each round of surge is triggered by capacity reduction. It can be seen that after the production of butanol enters 2021, the balance between supply and demand is broken again, and the resource shortage cycle enters again.

4. In 2021, the import dependence of butanol is weak and the export of foreign trade increases greatly

In 2021, with strong macroeconomic recovery and commodities, peripheral industry chain disturbance factors, such as domestic butyl octyl alcohol present the state of equilibrium, but efficient, stable output based on domestic production enterprises, combined with Europe and the United States and Japan and South Korea, southeast Asia and other major producer is impacted by the outbreak continue repeatedly and force majeure, overseas device more than once in production or no production, therefore, The annual domestic imports of butanol products continued to decline sharply, with an average decline of more than 40%, especially n-butanol imports under the influence of anti-dumping. · The total imports from January to December decreased by 55% compared with last year, and the annual imports of butanol decreased by 14% compared with last year. In the second half of the year, the monthly average imports of butanol decreased to only about 11,000 tons and 19,300 tons respectively, both of which continued to decline compared with the level of the same period in previous years, and about 52% and 15% lower than the monthly average level of last year.

According to the import source statistics, the main import sources of n-butanol and octanol are basically stable, among which n-butanol imports are still mainly from Taiwan (Formosa Plastics), Saudi Arabia, South Africa and other countries and regions. Octanol imports are still mainly from Taiwan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Japan and South Korea. Among them, the imports of n-butanol from Taiwan from January to December reached 81,600 tons, accounting for 62.3% of the total, accounting for more than 60%. The imports of n-butanol from Saudi Arabia and South Africa from January to December were 35,100 tons and 0.41,500 tons, accounting for about 26.85% and 3.2%, respectively. In 2021, the main import source of octanol is Indonesia (PT PON), which imports 87,900 tons from January to December, accounting for 38%, followed by Saudi Arabia, which imports 38,600 tons from January to December, accounting for 16.7%, and Taiwan, which imports 38,400 tons from January to December, accounting for 16.6%. South Korea 31,300 tons, accounting for 13.52 percent.

In 2021, due to the continuous impact of the epidemic and other factors on the foreign supply chain, the domestic butanol production capacity maintained high load operation. Therefore, the domestic butanol export increased significantly in 2021, with the total export volume of n-butanol from January to December reaching 28,500 tons and the total export volume of butanol reaching 28,700 tons, up 4000% and 200% respectively compared with 2020.

5, 2021 butanol rising main line: macro policy overlay supply and demand contradiction 2021 butanol "witness" history

In 2021, the domestic market of butanol will see an overall strong rise regardless of market price, production and sales volume as well as industry profitability. From macro policies to factors of supply and demand in the industry, multi-dimensional positive fermentation has promoted the market to create a number of historical records in the industry.

In the first quarter, especially before and after the Spring Festival in 2021, the United States very cold weather, the ebola virus outbreak in Africa and the Middle East geopolitical conflict accidental factors such as concentration, commodities such as crude oil futures market rally in a row, at the same time, domestic under the fight rein tone, promote local new mode, make two prosperous situation in production and consumption during the Chinese New Year holiday was more marked. Butanol downstream butylacrylate and plasticizer plants also have adequate order demand, operating rates at the higher level of the same period in previous years. According to data statistics, butyl acrylate operating rate as a whole remains relatively high at about 60-70%, and plasticizer, especially special plasticizer DOTP operating rate has reached a new high level of 65-70% or more in recent years. So support butanoctanol consumption rose sharply, become one of the main reasons for creating super market.

In the third quarter, double control policy under the influence of energy consumption, butyl octyl alcohol domestic manufacturer affected by electricity and the maintenance of their own devices, supply continues to decline and strained, market into a strong cycle again and again to drive the boom of the whole industry, the overall market focus continuous lift, butyl octyl alcohol market after a long period in the third quarter, sharply downward adjustment process, Downstream fill inventory cycle overlay, butanoctanol market in October 2021 ushered in the second stage of strong rise. Including shandong facilities.we device in August 24 to September 22, overhaul, jiangsu huachang butyl octyl alcohol two sets of equipment in early August - September parking overhaul, qilu petrochemical butyl octyl alcohol part parking overhaul in September 20 days or so, shandong company profit butyl octyl alcohol device in early October a short stop a week or so, and luxi and butyl octyl alcohol device drop somewhat negative, such as chemical industry, As a result, the supply of butanol decreased and the gap between supply and demand expanded.

6, 2021 strong recovery butanol downstream consumption continued to expand

In 2021, the main downstream consumption of butanol increased significantly. Although there is still no new capacity in n-butanol downstream, such as butyl acrylate, butyl acetate and DBP, the operating rate increased significantly, and the production and sales volume increased significantly compared with the previous year. Main downstream DOTP octanol has new capacity in 2021 release, of octyl alcohol consumption, including the DOP consumption also increase significantly, so butyl octyl alcohol by a good margin apparent consumption growth in 2021, mainly based on the outbreak era, internal and external to the overall comprehensive recovery, the boom of butyl octyl alcohol industry continue to rise, demand increment expanding.