Butadiene: Import Dependency Continues to Decline

The development of domestic rubber and plastic industries has formed a certain support for the price of butadiene. In 2008, the main market for butadiene is still in East China, and the price trend in Southeast Asia will affect the domestic market. The average price for this year is expected to be slightly higher than last year. The average annual price of butadiene in East China will be between RMB 11,000 and RMB 12,000/ton. With the increase of the production capacity of domestic ethylene and C4 products, the shortage of butadiene supply in China will improve, and the dependence on imports will continue to decline.
Butadiene is one of the important basic petrochemical raw materials. It is the largest monomer in the synthetic rubber industry and an important intermediate for the production of synthetic resins and organic chemical raw materials. In 2007, the domestic butadiene market showed three major characteristics: the price was wide and volatile, the annual average price was lower than in 2006, and the difference between the highest price and the lowest price was as high as 7,680 yuan/ton; the total amount of resources increased substantially, and the annual output Estimated to be about 1.35 million tons, the import volume is about 110,000 tons, and the degree of dependence on imports has been weakening year by year; prices have been closely linked and the price of Southeast Asia has fallen sharply. This has caused certain psychological pressure on domestic producers and people in circulation, and has risen and fell. situation.
In recent years, the sharp rise in international oil prices has supported ethylene prices to a certain extent. With the increase in production costs, it is unlikely that the price of butadiene will continue to fall sharply in 2008. In addition, due to the relatively large drop in butadiene prices in 2007, there are technically revised requirements. With the development of the paper industry and footwear industry, especially the increase of high-grade highways, the demand for SBR and SBS will increase substantially, and there will be some support for the market price of butadiene.
In the future, domestic ABS resin will still have more room for development and will stimulate the market demand for butadiene. ABS resin is widely used in electrical and electronic, sheet light industrial products, automotive and industrial accessories, agricultural machinery parts, pipeline containers, etc. Market demand for ABS resin will increase significantly with the development of the above industries. In addition, because K resin has the characteristics of high impact strength, high toughness, high transparency, tin plating, and good processing performance, it has a certain degree of competitiveness and is increasingly receiving attention from the market.
At the same time, the butadiene market in 2008 was also affected by some unfavorable factors. The first is subject to the trend of downstream products. Recently, butadiene downstream product prices are relatively weak. Under the circumstances that downstream producers cannot digest high production costs, it is expected that the butadiene market demand in 2008 will have a phased oversupply, which will restrain prices from rising to some extent. Amplitude. The second is to focus on capacity expansion to curb price increases. Daqing Petrochemical added a set of 70,000 tons/year butadiene production plant in 2007, a new 150,000-ton/year plant in PetroChina Sichuan ethylene project, and Guangzhou Petrochemical will build a new 120000-ton/year plant in Yangtze Petrochemical also set up a new 100,000-ton/year plant at the end of 2007. In 2008, the commissioning of some new devices will put pressure on the market. The third is the influence of macro-control. Factors such as macro-control and environmental protection will have a certain impact on the downstream market of butadiene in 2008.

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