Epoxy resin materials are widely used in various industries, among which the printed circuit board in the electronics industry is one of the largest application industries, accounting for a quarter of the overall application market.
The epoxy resin is widely used in the production of upstream substrate copper clad plate and semi-curing sheet with low curing shrinkage rate, high mechanical strength, excellent chemical resistance and dielectric properties. Because the epoxy resin is too closely related to the circuit board substrate, so once its output is insufficient, or the price is high, it will restrict the development of the circuit board industry, but also will lead to the profitability of the circuit board manufacturers to decline.
Epoxy resin production and sales volume
With the development of downstream emerging applications such as 5G, new energy vehicles, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, data center, cloud computing, the circuit board industry recovered rapidly under the impact of the epidemic weakened, and the demand for HDI board, soft board, ABF board soared; and the wind power application demand increases month by month, China's current epoxy resin production or cannot meet the growing demand, need to increase the import of epoxy resin, to ease the supply tension.
It is reported that more than 2.5 million tons of epoxy resin projects are under construction and planned in China. If all these projects are successfully put into operation, the domestic epoxy resin production capacity will reach more than 4.5 million tons by 2025. The year-on-year growth data of production capacity from January to August 2021 shows that the release of production capacity of these projects is already accelerating in 2021. Production capacity is the foundation of industrial development. In the past few years, China's total production capacity of epoxy resin is too stable to meet the growing domestic market demand, making our enterprises dependent on imports for a long time in the past.
From 2017 to 2020, China's epoxy resin imports were 276,200 tons, 269,500 tons, 288,800 tons and 404,800 tons, respectively. Imports increased significantly in 2020, up by 40.2% year on year. Behind these data, with the lack of domestic epoxy resin production capacity at that time is closely related.
With the significant increase of the total production capacity of domestic epoxy resin in 2021, the import volume decreased by 88,800 tons, down 21.94% year on year, and China's epoxy resin export volume also exceeded 100,000 tons for the first time, up 117.67% year on year.
China is not only the world's largest supplier of epoxy resin, but also the world's largest consumer of epoxy resin. The consumption from 2017 to 2020 is 1.443 million tons, 1.506 million tons, 1.599 million tons and 1.691 million tons, respectively. In 2019, it accounted for 51.0% of the global consumption, making it is a real consumer of epoxy resin. The demand is too huge, which is why we need to rely heavily on imports in the past.
Latest prices for epoxy resin
The latest price, on March 15, the epoxy resin price given in Huangshan, Shandong and east China is 23,500-23,800 yuan / ton, 23,000-23,600 yuan / ton, 26,500-27,300 yuan / ton respectively
After the resumption of work in the Spring Festival of 2022, the sales of epoxy resin products rebounded, and the international crude oil price rose many times. Driven by multiple favorable factors, the price of epoxy resin rose all the way after the beginning of 2022. After March, the price began to fall, and the weakness weakened.
The price decline in March may be related to the outbreak in many parts of the country in March, including ports, high-speed closure, and seriously blocked logistics, and epoxy resin manufacturers were unable to ship smoothly, and the downstream multiple demand areas entered into the slow season.
Over the past 2021, epoxy prices have experienced many increases in 2021, with inflation in April and September. I remember that in early January 2021, the price of liquid epoxy resin was only 21,500 yuan / ton, and on April 19, it rose to 41,500 yuan / ton, up 147% year on year. At the end of September, the price of epoxy resin rose sharply again, sending the price of propylene oxide skyrocketing to more than 21,000 yuan / ton.
It remains to be seen if the price of epoxy resin will soar in 2022 as last year. From the demand side also look, whether it is the electronic industry printed circuit board demand, or the demand of the coating industry, this year's epoxy resin demand will not be too bad, the demand of the two major industries are growing every day. On the supply side, the epoxy resin production capacity in 2022 is obviously far improved. Prices are expected to be reduced by the gap between supply and demand, or repeatedly affected by outbreaks in many parts of the country.
