China's Polyether market has been in the state of overcapacity for many years. Throughout the past three years, the annual average operating rate has been less than 70%. The import volume of polyether customs has been decreasing year by year, and most of the import resources are high-end polyether. However, the reduction of imports does not mean that foreign resources will no longer peep into the Chinese market. Foreign manufacturers will not easily pass any chance to enter one of the world's largest polyether demand countries.
In the first quarter of 2015, Dow Chemical's newly-built 165000 T / a polyether plant in MANDAP, Thailand was put into production. In May 2015, Dow Chemical officially established a warehouse in the Chinese market for trial sale. It is heard that the monthly supply is about 400-500 tons, and the later stage will gradually increase the market input. It can be seen that the import source is determined to seize the market share of polyether in China.
It can be seen from the figure above that the United States, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan are in the top five. If Dow Thailand's Polyether device operates normally, it may overturn the pattern of domestic imported polyether, and it is expected to enter the top five.
Why does Dow Thai polyether have such a big impact on the market?
First of all, after the China ASEAN free trade area was completed and launched on January 1, 2010, over 90% of the products of China, Brunei, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore, six old ASEAN member countries, will be subject to zero tariff, and four new ASEAN members, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar, will be able to achieve zero tariff for 90% of the Chinese products in 2015. Among them, Southeast Asia's imported polyether products benefited from the ASEAN duty-free agreement tariff from 6.5% to 0, and Thailand's Dow polyether benefited from this, and gained great development space in pricing.
Secondly, the integrated supporting devices of the upstream and downstream industrial chains of Dow polyether and propylene oxide in Thailand greatly reduce the production cost of polyether, enhance the competitiveness of imported polyether in the market, and it is possible to seize the market share of China at a low price in the future.
Thirdly, the overall quality of imported goods is better than that of domestic polyether, and the market recognition is higher. Under the background of the uneven quality of domestic polyether products, Thailand Dow's imported goods have the advantage of quality.
Generally speaking, Dow Thai resources have certain advantages in quality and can stand the competition in price. Although it is still in the stage of water test in China market, it has attracted the attention of many large factories.
With the continuous development of downstream processing industry of chemical production in various countries, the international competition of polyether market will be further intensified in the future. Some time ago, as the world's major oil exporter, Saudi Arabia announced that it would speed up the development of the whole petrochemical industry in the future, and hoped that it would transform itself from a single crude oil exporting country to a production exporting country of petrochemical products to increase profits.
As early as a few years ago, Dow Chemical began to build 390000 T / a polyether polyol plant in Saudi Arabia. It is expected that the first phase of the project will be officially put into operation as soon as the second half of 2015, and all of it will be put into operation in 2017. This heavy-duty polyether unit has a supply chain from crude oil to downstream products of polyether, and the production cost of polyether will be greatly reduced. If the current Dow Thai resources test water successfully, the possibility of Dow Saudi resources entering China to attack the market will not be ruled out in the future.
In general, although China's total capacity of polyether is the first in the world, and it has been transformed from an import country to an export country in recent years, the world market is full of strengths and dangers. While expanding the overseas market, the domestic market should be vigilant at all times to improve its competitiveness.
