According to the price trend of the past 10 years, the average price of China's ABS market has appeared at least three stage lows in the past 10 years, which are 9000 yuan/ton in December 2015, 9600 yuan/ton in April 2020, and 9450 yuan/ton in late May 2023. Although the market price of ABS has rebounded slightly at the end of 2023, the price is still hovering at a bottom.
Based on the historical low point interval in the past few years, the interval is about 5 years from 2015 to 2020, and about 4 years from 2020 to mid-2023. In other words, the time period for the historic low of China's ABS is gradually shortening. At the same time, the ABS market price has continued to fall for more than 2 years, from a historic high of 18,800 yuan/ton at the end of 2020 to 9,450 yuan/ton in May 2023, a cumulative decline of more than 9,350 yuan/ton, a decline of 50%. ABS is one of the commodities with the longest decline and the largest decline.
Although the ABS price has risen in 24 years, it is still not a big increase. Taking the Dongguan market, ABS/ Tianjin Dagu /DG417 as an example, the market price in November 2024 is 10,030 yuan/ton.
ABS profit margin decreased, production at a loss
From the end of July 2023, the ABS industry ended the high-profit model, and the industry as a whole was in a state of continuous loss, the main reason for the loss was the release of new equipment capacity, and the average profit of the ABS industry in the first quarter was -944 yuan/ton, which was 391 yuan/ton in the same period last year, a decrease of 1335 yuan/ton, a decrease of 141%. After entering 2024, the ABS industry continued to lose money, ABS petrochemical manufacturers could not make ends meet, after 23 years of losses, some manufacturers began to gradually limit the production insurance price in 24 years.
ABS industry has serious overcapacity
From the perspective of ABS device production capacity, the release of domestic ABS devices before 2020 is limited, basically maintaining near 4.2 million tons/year, and only 200,000 tons/year device release in Shandong Haijiang in the industry, and there is no new device release in the industry in 19-20 years; In 2021, 450,000 tons of new devices in Zhangzhou Qimei and 100,000 tons of new devices in Guangxi Changke will be released in the industry, a total of 500,000 tons of new devices will be released, and the total capacity will reach 4.705 million tons/year; In 2022, Liaoning Jinfa and LG Huizhou total 550,000 tons, (Jinfa according to 400,000), the total production capacity of 5.255 million tons; In 2023, new devices in the industry began to enter the centralized release cycle, Shandong Lianyi, Zhejiang Petrochemical, CNPC Jihua Jieyang, Ningbo Taihua, Sinopec Ineos benzene, etc., a total of 2.45 million tons of new devices were centralized release, and the total production capacity reached 7.705 million tons/year. Starting from 2023, with the centralized production of new devices, the ABS industry began to enter the loss stage. From 17 to 20 years, more than 90% of the industry started gradually decreased to less than 60% of the industry started in 2024, by 2024, Dalian Hengli 300,000 tons of new equipment put into operation, the total production capacity of ABS industry reached 8.225 million tons/year.