DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "China Polymer Foam Material Industry Report, 2010-2011" report to their offering.
China's polymer foam materials industry is developing rapidly, with the average annual growth rate of foam plastic output at 18.1% from 2001 to 2010, and the output in 2010 hitting 2.414 million tons which accounted for two-thirds of the Chinese polymer foam materials market.
In China, there are numerous polymer foam materials production enterprises, but most of them are SMEs. The industry features fierce competition, and the number of foam plastic manufacturers registered above 1,200 in 2010. Although the China polymer foam materials industry is mature, domestic producers mainly focus on medium and low-end products, with some high-end products still imported. The unit price of imports differs greatly from that of exports. For example, in 2010, the import unit price of expanded polyurethane plastic was USD11,036.8/ton, while the export unit price was USD5,178.9/ ton, the former double of the latter.
According to the difference among raw materials, polymer foam materials can be divided into expandable polyurethane (EPU), expandable polystyrene (EPS), expanded ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA), expandable polypropylene (EPP), expandable polyethylene (EPE), etc.
1. EPU, Expandable Polyurethane
EPU finds application mainly in such sectors as refrigeration, building insulation and solar water heaters. Fueled by policies, the demand from Chinese markets of building insulation and solar water heaters for EPU will present significant growth.
Nanjing Hongbaoli and Guangdong Wanhua Rongwei Polyurethane are the key producers of polyurethane hard foam combined materials in China, of which the former boasts the largest production capacity in China with 90 kilotons. The 60-kiloton hard foam combined polyether project uis nder way and its market shares are to be expanded after the project is in production. Guangdong Wanhua Rongwei is a subsidiary of Yantai Wanhua and is the sole manufacturer which can independently produce polyurethane hard foam combined materials, with conspicuous cost advantage.
2. EPS, Expandable Polystyrene
In recent years, the EPS industry of China has expanded exceedingly fast, causing overcapacity and fierce competition. In 2010, China's capacity of EPS exceeded 4 million tons, but the real output registered less than 2.5 million tons, with the operating rate merely 62.5%. It is expected that, in the next few years the oversupply of EPS in China will be hard to ease and the operating rate will continue to be constrained.
Loyal Group and Wuxi Xingda Group are the EPS manufacturers ranking first and second by capacity respectively in China. In 2010, the production capacities of the two reached 1.34 million tons and 990, 000 tons, separately. Both companies have the EPS project under construction, and the production capacities of both will continue to grow.
