By mid-April 2023, the scale of BDO installation in China is 2.85 million tons/year, and the output in 2022 is close to 2 million tons. The industrial scenic spot is relatively high and the overall operation rate is good. However, according to statistics, more than 1.85 million tons are planned to be built in the next 5 years, which means that China's BDO industry will achieve double growth in capacity in the future.
According to the statistics of the BDO projects to be built, it is found that the raw materials own account for about 71% of the projects, while the raw materials purchased from abroad account for about 29%. Calcium carbide method accounted for about 83% of the project, natural gas method accounted for about 17%. Among them, the project with supporting facilities accounts for about 71%, while the project without supporting facilities accounts for about 29%.
Why is everyone mounting a BDO?
First, BDO is an important basic chemical raw material, which can be extended to a large number of industrial chains
BDO is an important raw material product for the development of China's chemical industry market. It is also an important direction worth studying and developing after the extension of China's crude oil chemical industry chain is blocked and the development policy of coal chemical industry is restricted. It is the focus of the industry at present. According to the investigation of Pingtou Brother, BDO production processes in the Chinese market mainly include the following four: 1. Reppe method using formaldehyde and acetylene (calcium carbide gas) as raw materials; 2. Butadiene acetoxylation with butadiene and acetic acid as raw materials; 3. Propylene oxide process using propylene oxide/propylene alcohol as raw material; 4. N-butane/maleic anhydride method using n-butane/maleic anhydride as raw material. Among them, the third and fourth process routes are respectively called propylene oxide method, propylene alcohol method, n-butane method and maleic anhydride method according to the difference of initial raw materials.
At present, BDO is mainly developing towards the THF-PTMEG industrial chain, among which PTMEG can be used as spandex, PU slurry, TPEE, waterborne polyurethane and other products. For example, in the fields of TPU, synthetic leather, clothing and textile, BDO can be used as the raw material to produce chemical products.
Another direction that can be extended is PBAT and PBS, as important representatives of degradable plastics, among which PBAT is an important development type in the field of degradable plastics in China and the type with the largest production scale. The downstream can be produced as disposable plastic products. In addition, it can also be extended to PBT and other engineering plastics, such as PBT modification, staple fiber, etc., as auto parts, clothing processing and other fields.
BDO can be used as raw material for GBL production, and in the downstream, it can be used as NMP and NVP production. NMP is applied in the auxiliary material of lithium battery, while NVP can produce PVP. In the downstream, it is widely used as dispersant of lithium battery precursor and additive of environmental protection materials.
It is precisely because of the wide application of BDO downstream, which provides chemical enterprises with many alternative directions, and has become an important reason for enterprises to pay high attention to. With the progress of chemical technology, the extension direction of BDO downstream will continue to expand.
Second, degradable plastics are driven by policy attributes
Flatheads believes Bdos are highly focused because of the properties of degradable plastics downstream. As can be seen from the above, degradable plastics that can be produced downstream with BDO as raw materials include PBAT and PBS, among which PBAT is the variety with the largest scale to be built in the degradable plastics industry, and the scale to be built in the future will exceed 10 million tons/year. For other plastic varieties, the industry growth rate to be built in the future will also exceed 30%.
On January 19, 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment issued the "Opinions on Further Strengthening the control of Plastic Pollution" : "By the end of 2020, China will take the lead in banning or restricting the production, sale and use of some plastic products in some regions and sectors. By the end of 2020, consumption of disposable plastic products will be significantly reduced and alternatives promoted."
In July 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and other nine departments jointly issued the Notice on the Solid Promotion of Plastic pollution control, which made it clear that starting from January 1, 2021, shopping malls, supermarkets, pharmacies, bookstores and other places, food packaging and takeout services and various exhibition activities in the built-up areas of municipalities directly under the Central Government, provincial capitals and cities separately listed in the plan. Non-biodegradable plastic shopping bags will be banned, but roll-on bags, fresh bags and garbage bags will not be banned for now. It is also being described by the industry as the most stringent plastic restrictions in history. Subsequently, Shandong, Henan, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Hainan, Hubei and other provinces issued implementation plans for plastic pollution control, accelerating the promotion of plastic pollution control work.
Subsequently, the corresponding "plastic restriction" was introduced across the country. Affected by this, the degradable plastics became "hot" in 2020. Many enterprises focused on the PBAT industry, and the newly built and planned production capacity showed an explosion trend. According to incomplete statistics, the new production capacity of domestic PBAT will exceed 10 million tons in the next 5 years, which will also increase the attention on raw material BDO.
Third, the trend of calcium carbide and natural gas chemical industry chain extension
In addition to its extensive downstream applications and biodegradable plastics properties, BDO is being highly regarded in the industry for its calcium carbide and natural gas chemicals.
Calcium carbide is an important inorganic chemical raw material, is an important carbon source supplement in chemical production, currently mainly used in the production of PVC, followed by vinyl acetate and other chemical production, BDO is only one of the chemical production of calcium carbide as raw material. From the current market development results, PVC industry is basically in excess of the status quo, vinyl acetate has shown a serious surplus situation, other chemical products market boom degree is general, thus highlighting the BDO industrial chain of high boom characteristics.
Therefore, if calcium carbide as raw material for chemical production, BDO industrial chain is an important direction to consider.
For natural gas chemical industry, natural gas is mainly used as fuel at present, which has an irreplaceable role in civil and industrial heat source supplement. With the continuous improvement of natural gas supply, the attribute of natural gas based on protecting civil use has been extended to the application of some industrial raw materials, thus giving birth to the development of natural gas chemical industry.
The production of natural gas chemical industry can be used for the production of synthetic ammonia, methanol, hydrogen, acetylene, hydrocyanic acid and carbon black. Among them, synthetic ammonia has been in serious surplus. Although hydrogen is in line with the development trend of hydrogen energy, it is not transportable, which increases its huge development limitation. The highly toxic nature of hydrocyanic acid makes it impossible to use natural gas as raw material for production. Therefore, if natural gas chemical industry is selected, acetylene to BDO production mode has become an important, valuable and feasible direction to consider, which leads to the development of natural gas production BDO chemical industry.
The reason why BDO is widely concerned is the phased characteristics of chemical industry development and an important signal of chemical policy change. In the future, chemical production will focus more on low-carbon, low energy consumption and high value-added production methods, and BDO is only one of the main products, such as the development of the chemical industry chain of methane, ethane, propane and butane, and the production of high-end amine chemicals made of synthetic ammonia as raw materials, which may become an important direction in the future, and we suggest that you pay close attention to it.
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