In 2013, the global polycarbonate (PC) capacity was nearly 500 million tons, and the output was less than 4 million tons, with the operatoing rate of 78%, emerging overcapacity trend. In 2013, the world's largest PC producing area was Asia, accounting for about 50% of the total capacity, followed by Western Europe and North America.
Currently, the development of the world PC industry showed the following characteristics: firstly, the production is more concentrated and monopolistic.Specifically, Bayer, SABIC, Styron, Teijin and Mitsubishi Group control the global PC production and the market. Secondly, Asia has developed rapidly. With continuously increasing dema- nds from China, India and other countries, global famous PC manufacturers investing and building factories in Asia actively. Asia has become the center of the world's PC production and developments. Thirdly, the produc- tion of PC has developed towards the direction of green and environment protection, and new PC products, such as PC alloy, are constantly emerging.
In the next five years,global polycarbonates capacity will mainly come fromChina. With large amount of Chinese new PC capacity put in production,global PC capacity will grow further, causing excessive global supply.
In 2013, the world wide PC market remained weak with consumption of more than 3.5 million tons, and a year-on year increase of about1.5 percent. Major consuming countries are China,the United States, Western Europe and Japan, accounting for nearly 70 percent of total global consumption. The main consumption areas included elec- tronic appliances,lumber,transportation, CDs, daily necessities, packaging and other fields.
In 2014, the markets of construction and vehicles in North America and Western Europeare recovering, stimulating PC demands growing, and thus the global PC businessis slowly recovering. Major PC terminal markets in North America have strongly recovered, leading demands of powerful rising motives. North American auto market accou- nted for 26% of the PC market demand, and its current vehicle sales are rising. In addition, construction markets which accounted for 34% share of the PC market in North America have broad prospects.Rising housing sales in the United States will drive the growth in demands of electronics and home appliances. In 2014, the economic recovery of Western European will help improving needs of most downstream areas,so downstream demands of PC markets are also recovering. With recovery of PC market in the developed countries and regions, it’s expected that global PC demands in the next five years will grow steadily.
2、China Domestic Polycarbonate Capacity Will Be in Period of Surging
The scientific research of polycarbonates in China began from 1958, and realized industrialized production in 1965. The polymerization plants of Shanghai Tianyuan Group, Chang Long Chemical Co., Ltd. in Jiangsu, and Changfeng Chemical plant in Chongqing were all engaged in the production successively and its products were mainly consumed on their own. But because of the small size of device, outdated technology, poor product quality and high production cost, their products were unable to compete with foreign products, and thus these equipments are currently closed.
After 2005, Chinese PC saw investment boom, with worldwide PC manufacturers including Teijin and Bayer inve- sting in factories in China. In 2005, Teijin Chemical established wholly-owned Teijin polycarbonate Co., Ltd., in Jiaxing of Zhejiang province, and the device with 50KTA capacity put into operation. Through continuous capacity expansion, the total capacity of it was up to 147kt by 2013. On November, 2006, the polycarbonate unit (100KTA) of Bayer (Shanghai) Polymers Co., Ltd. was put into operation, and the second (100KTA) of which was started to run from Dec, 2008.
Two PC projects from Mitsubishi Chemicals of Japan was put into production in 2012. The first one was about Sinopec’s 60KTA joint projects with Mitsubishi Chemicals Co. The second one was about Mitsubishi Chemical’s 80KTA projects invested by its wholly-owned enterprise Lingyou Engineering Plastics Co., Ltd. (Shanghai).
By the end of 2013, China's PC capacity reached 487KTA , and the output was about 200kt, with the operation rate of 50% or so influenced by the market, technology and production equipment such factors. Domestic PC was totally controlled by the foreign and joint ventures enterprises.
Stimulated by the strong domestic PC demands, national policy supports and the further exploration of technology, there are many new and proposed PC projects in China. By June of 2014, there were mainly eight new and prop- osed PC projects in China, and in the next five years China will enter the outbreak period of PC capacity.
PC resin Production in China from 2002 to 2013 and its forecast in the next five years are shown in Figure 1.
3、Domestic Demand Continue To Grow
In recent years, Chinese PC imports have increased year by year. In 2002, Chinese PC imports and exports tota- led 415kt, 1021kt in 2007, and 1375kt in 2012. As the consumption growth slowed down in 2013, imports only rose slightly to 1379kt, with an increase of only 4kt compared with the year of 2012.
PC resin imports and exports of China in 2012~2013 are shown in Figure 2.
From 2008 to 2013, influenced by the global economic downturn, PC demands of Western Europe, North America and Japan had been weak, but PC consumption in China is still growing rapidly, with an average annual growth rate of around 10%. In 2013, China's PC consumption was about 1.4 million tons.
At present, PC is mainly used in electronic appliances, construction, automotive, packaging, disks, etc. Since the late 1990s, PC demands in sand tubes of textile industry have changed to electronic appliances, CD, construction, automotive industry and other fields and their demands are surging.
From 2000 to 2008, China's PC market developed rapidly, mainly driven by the demands of electronic products, building plank, CD, non- disposable drinking buckets and food containers.
From 2008 to 2013, China's PC consumption enjoyed more diversified developments. Great changes happened in industry structure and consu- mption percentages, with cd-rom industry consumption shrinking significantly, and consumption percentage of electronic appliances, sun plate, automotive industry, and packaging rising. Diversified developments also help create other emerging industries of medical, glasses, optical lens, PC film, etc.
4、Conclusion
From 2008 to 2013, Chinese PC production capacity had increased by 8.8% annually; output had achieved an average annual growth rate of 11.2%; the apparent consumption had an average annual growth rate of 9.9%. In recent 5 years, with the rapid growth of Chinese PC consumption, gap had expanded to 1170 kt in 2013. However, because growth rate of output is higher than that of apparent consumption, the self-sufficiency rate in China has increased. In 2013,Chinese PC degree of dependence on foreign countries dependence was still about 80%, so Chinese PC products were import-oriented. In the next five years,with the release of Chinese new PC production capacity,domestic supply capacity will be greatly enhanced,and the output will grow rapidly. As Chinese economy continues to develop,automotive, electronics, construction,non-disposable drinking water barrels and other indus- tries will boost steady growth of PC demands, with lower growth rate compared with the previous five years though. It’sexpected that in 2018,China's PC market gap will continue to be in a high level,and with the declined external dependence, the situation of demands over supplyis still grim.