Observations from China Specialty Chemicals Trip:
Just got back from a trip to China where the focus was on two of my favorite markets, surfactants and silicones. Many meetings, a couple of conferences, an exhibition and topped off with a speaking engagement, before hopping on the (direct) Shanghai to Newark flight home. The silicones aspect, undertaken primarily on behalf of Sivance LLC, on whose board I sit, was an eye-opener. Suffice to say, that the organizers, CNCIC, a government body deserve a lot of credit for the quality of the event. I will be talking more about silicones in the coming weeks.
Surfactants in China is a hot market. And by hot, I mean, booming and somewhat overbuilt. In common with many markets there, we see tremendous overcapacity and a very large number of local producers, often sub-scale, competing with larger multinationals who are setting up shop primarily to take part in the growing consumer market for surfactant containing products like laundry detergent, shampoo and cosmetics. I spoke at the 10th Asia Surfactant Conference in Shanghai and moderated one of the afternoon sessions. One of my speakers from Huntsman painted a picture of a highly oversupplied market with 14 ethylene oxide producers, pushing product into MEG and surfactant applications. This view was reinforced by an article in the September 6th edition of the China Chemical Reporter, which noted that China alcohol ethoxylation capacity is currently running at about 50% utilization. With the upcoming 60KMT/yr nonionic surfactant project in Nanjing by BASF-YPC, there is sure to be some serious rationalization and consolidation in this market.
My own contribution to the conference focused on what could be the third major leg to the stool of surfactant feedstocks, that is bio-mass. A copy of the paper can be downloaded from my site, here.
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