In the past few years, the acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) industry has performed well and the price has been at a high level, but the recent trend is unsatisfactory. Since August last year, ABS prices have continued to decline. Although the decline stopped in 2019, prices have been hovering at a low level for a long time. According to statistics, since August last year,
ABS
Prices fell by 18.8%. Later, ABS market prospects are still not optimistic.
On the supply side, new equipment has been put into operation this year, and supply pressure of ABS has increased.
In 2018, 200,000 tons/year plant was put into operation in Haijiang, Shandong Province, and ABS production capacity in China reached 4.08 million tons/year. In 2019, 150,000 tons/year of Lejin Chemical Industry and 100,000 tons/year of KYUAN ABS plant in Guangxi are expected to be put into operation, and the supply pressure of ABS will further increase.
On the import side, ABS import volume has steadily increased. 2018, China
ABS
Total imports amounted to 201.3 million tons, an increase of 12.5% over the same period last year. In recent years, although the domestic production capacity has increased, the import proportion has been stable at about 35%. The demand for high-end materials mainly depends on import supply. It is expected that high-end ABS imports will remain high this year.
On the downstream side, the shrinking demand of household appliances and automotive industry makes it difficult to drive the ABS market.
From the perspective of household appliances industry, in the past few years, driven by factors such as household appliances going to the countryside and consumption upgrading, the household appliances industry has entered a high-speed development channel. By 2018, the production and sales of major household appliances in China have declined to varying degrees, especially in air-conditioning, refrigerators and kitchen appliances. In addition, in January 2018, President Trump announced a four-year global safeguard for importing large-scale washing machines and imposed a tariff of ** 30%, which further depressed the development of household appliances industry.
The automotive industry is also in trouble. According to statistics released by the China Automobile Industry Association, China's automobile sales totaled 28081,000 in 2018, down 2.8% from the same period last year. This is the first negative growth in China's automobile market since 1990, which has greatly depressed the demand for ABS.
In addition, the substitution of impact polystyrene (HIPS) for ABS also has an impact on the ABS market. ABS price is higher than HIPS for a long time, and both of them can be used in the production of household appliances, toys and other products. In order to reduce the purchase cost, many household appliances enterprises use HIPS instead of ABS. In some low-end applications, HIPS is more competitive, which brings pressure to ABS market.
Generally speaking,
ABS
After experiencing the rapid development in the early stage, it has been exhausted in the past two years. Domestic production capacity continues to increase, but the downstream main industry demand shrinks, coupled with the competition from HIPS, ABS industry will have a more difficult environment to survive, brilliant difficult to reproduce.
