At the annual methanol forum held in Houston, USA, the methanol market services Asian companies to publish the future trend report of China's methanol market: China has become the world's second largest methanol consumer, and it is also the fastest growing country for methanol production, and will continue to With rapid development, China will become the world's largest consumer of methanol in 2010.
The report predicts that in the next five years, the demand for methanol in the Asia Pacific region will increase from 13 million tons to 18 million tons. It is expected that the demand for methanol in China will increase from 6.45 million tons in 2005 to 9.34 million tons in 2010, accounting for nearly 60% of the global new demand.
With the increase in methanol demand, China's methanol self-sufficiency is also increasing. China has a large amount of coal reserves, and coal-based methanol production still has advantages in the Chinese market. Although these coal-based methanol plants do not have Western economic standards, the benefits of coal-based methanol production will still drive some investors to build new coal-based methanol plants, which will support domestic demand.
Methanol Market Services's analysis of Asian companies believes that in the next five years, a large number of new projects in China will lead to an oversupply of methanol in China. Competition in the domestic market will prompt the rationalization of domestic small-scale, high-cost methanol producers. However, domestic production still cannot meet the demand for methanol, and imports from the Middle East (Saudi Arabia and Iran) are increasing.
Formaldehyde will continue to be the most important methanol user in China because it is widely used in many products. Formaldehyde can be used to make urea formaldehyde (UF) resins and MDF (a key component for wood chips plywood). The growth of MDF demand is directly related to the prosperity of China's construction industry. In the next five years, the construction industry will continue to develop.
Despite the increase in coal prices, the high efficiency of methanol production and the continued growth in the demand for methanol derivatives still contributed to a new round of methanol expansion in China. Although not all projects will be implemented, the new capacity that has been approved and in the design and construction phase has reached approximately 12.4 million tons.
The competitiveness of China's methanol market lies entirely in the domestic derivatives market. The development of textiles, construction and automotive industry will continue to drive the growth of methanol demand. Formaldehyde, acetic acid, and methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) are the main derivatives of methanol consumed, and UF resins, polyoxymethylene, MDF, and 1-butanediol are particularly strong in many industries in China.