[Industry Focus]：The pace of industrial upgrading is accelerating, which chemicals in China will usher in a new round of capacity expansion.

Under the overall trend of my country's carbon peak and product structure transformation, the large-scale development process of my country's chemical industry has slowed down significantly. The contradiction of homogeneity has driven the pace of industrial upgrading, and has also accelerated the investment and construction expectations of new projects. Therefore, the future of China's chemical enterprises to achieve sustainable development, industrial chain extension and improve the refinement rate is the main development ideas and directions.

According to the statistics of more than 40 kinds of bulk chemicals, by 2025, China will usher in a new round of new project production frenzy, with an average new production capacity accounting for about 20% of the current total production capacity. In other words, by 2025, the production capacity of more than 40 kinds of bulk chemicals in China will continue to grow by about 1/5, and the new production capacity of some products will exceed 70%.

Analysis of the proportion of new capacity to existing capacity in China from 2024 to 2025

in the future, the total production capacity of new basic chemicals projects will account for about 24% of the existing production capacity, with an average production capacity of more than 20%. It can be seen that on the basis of the existing large scale, the future basic chemical industry will still be the main force of new chemical projects.

The new basic chemicals are phenol, acetone, carbon five carbon nine, plasticizer, epoxy resin, n-butanol, bisphenol A, epichlorohydrin, etc.. The proposed projects are mostly homogeneous product models, with differentiated and high-end models accounting for less than 10%. Therefore, the new project will directly affect the homogeneous competition of bulk chemicals and the contradiction between supply and demand of products in China.

In addition, from the bulk chemical projects that China plans to build in the future, we can also see the short-term development direction of China's chemical industry. On the one hand, if chemical enterprises want to achieve integrated development, the development of bulk chemicals is an essential product; on the other hand, through the construction of bulk chemicals, the downstream extension of the industrial chain can be realized and the refinement rate of the enterprise latitude can be improved. Therefore, the contradiction between supply and demand for the homogenization of bulk chemicals may exist for a long time with the strategic consideration of enterprises.

in the next 2-3 years, the new production capacity of aromatic products accounts for 8%-10% of China's existing production capacity, which is a relatively slow growth rate of new production capacity in China. Aromatic products mainly refer to pure benzene, toluene, xylene, xylene and other aromatic products.

Aromatics products grew slowly. On the one hand, due to the limitation of its production process, mainly aromatics from naphtha recombination and aromatic structure production, heavy units need to be attached to the production scale of refineries. If the scale of pre-planning and design supporting reorganization is small, the output scale of related aromatic products is also small. On the other hand, the oil refining industry belongs to the integration and elimination cycle. Most of the supporting restructuring devices are new refining and chemical integration projects, and there are basically no new projects, resulting in few projects under construction and limiting the new scale in the future.

The slow growth of aromatics industry is the inevitable result of the development of China's oil refining industry and the trend of global light raw materials. The slow development of aromatic products is expected to drive the structural transformation of China's chemical olefins and aromatic products, which will also directly affect the downstream product structure of the industrial chain.

in the next 2-3 years, China's polymer materials, chemical fiber, rubber, polyester products in the future new capacity scale will account for an average of more than 18% of the existing scale, individual products will reach more than 58%, such as PA66, EVA, polyethylene, etc., the difference between products is very obvious. Polymer materials, chemical fiber, rubber and polyester products belong to the end products of the chemical industry chain, which are the main embodiment of the development speed and direction of the terminal consumer market.

Under the premise of serious homogenization of polymer materials in China, many enterprises have the courage to try to distribute high-end new material products, such as α-olefin, PA66, photovoltaic EVA and so on. Although the current high-end new material products are small in scale, under the premise of technological breakthroughs, it is expected that the scale of China's high-end new material products will accelerate in the next five years, forming a market substitute for traditional low-end products.