2023 China chemical fiber industry in-depth research

From the perspective of the raw material side: in the benchmark case, the international oil price maintains the current range of fluctuations, the seasonal demand support in the third quarter of 2023 is relatively strong, and the fourth quarter or slightly weaker. From the perspective of the capacity matching of the chemical fiber industry chain, the new capacity of the main raw materials of chemical fiber, such as PTA and CPL, is greater than the new capacity of fiber, so the cost of raw materials is relatively loose, which will contribute to the restoration of industry profits.

From the supply side: the chemical fiber industry originally planned to put into production in 2022 due to market problems, part of the delay to 2023, making 2023 annual production capacity again concentrated, is the most incremental year in recent years. Therefore, before the effective growth of demand, industry enterprises should focus on controlling new production capacity, strengthen industry self-discipline, and avoid further escalation of the contradiction between supply and demand in order to maintain the sustainable and stable development of the chemical fiber industry.

From the demand side: the domestic market has a stable recovery basis, policies to boost consumer confidence, can focus on home textile consumption. In terms of export sales, the export market of textile and apparel is under great pressure, but the export of chemical fiber products is still expected to grow steadily.

Looking forward to the whole year, the operation of the chemical fiber industry is expected to improve, but whether the supply and demand relationship of the industry can effectively improve has become the key to whether the operation of the industry can stabilize and rebound, and it is expected that it may experience a long period of repair cycle. Only from the point of view of data indicators, due to the low base in the fourth quarter of last year, the growth rate of various indicators in the second half of this year is expected to be better repaired.

Industry advice

The barriers of the chemical fiber industry mainly include product development barriers and production process barriers, customer barriers and financial barriers.

Product development barriers: high-performance, multi-functional, differentiated fiber production enterprises need to develop for different raw material characteristics and different application fields in order to adapt to the special needs of different downstream customers, and thus have high product development barriers.

Specifically, first of all, enterprises are required to have deep technical precipitation and rich industry experience, can accurately grasp the key points of customer demand and technical translation and conversion, and develop customized products that meet specific technical indicators and market applications. Secondly, the product development needs professional knowledge of polymer materials science and other professional knowledge, the research and development process needs repeated trials and formula debugging, R & D personnel need to have rich industry experience in order to ensure the smooth development of products.

At the same time, in order to make the product have a certain specific function and special requirements, it is also necessary to adjust the production equipment and process parameters accordingly, so that the production process can be effectively and accurately controlled. Therefore, the ability to develop products has become an important barrier for new enterprises to enter the industry.

Production process barriers: First, the production of high-performance index products, from the treatment of raw materials, to the spinning process of temperature, pressure, extrusion speed, cooling wind temperature, wind speed and other parameters need to be refined control, the need for enterprises to adjust their own production equipment, constantly optimize the process and accumulate production experience.

The second is the need for enterprises to develop and design processes for product performance, and further specialized transformation of production equipment to improve the applicability, quality and stability of production. Therefore, new entrants will face high production process barriers.

Customer barriers: From the perspective of the application market segments of high-performance, multi-functional and differentiated fibers, the cooperation relationship between the supply and demand parties is relatively stable, which forms certain barriers for new entrants.

Here's why: On the one hand, due to the differences in processes, raw materials, equipment, etc., there will be subtle differences in the performance indicators of products produced by different enterprises. If the downstream textile enterprises change suppliers, they need to adjust and match their own processes, equipment parameters, etc., and the adjustment difficulty and cost of changing suppliers are relatively high. Downstream enterprises usually choose relatively stable suppliers to avoid frequent adjustments in order to improve production efficiency and ensure long-term stability of product quality.