Three major chronic diseases in the market of solid caustic soda

China's solid Caustic Soda industry, hereinafter referred to as solid caustic soda, is currently undergoing a transformation due to the small size and large number of enterprises, backward technical equipment, and uneven product quality, which severely restricts enterprises from further expanding their market space. In response to this, at the end of November in the Ordos City of Inner Mongolia, a national conference on the development of some chlor-Alkali enterprises, the industry proposed that adjusting the industrial structure and optimizing the product structure would promote the development of the industry in the direction of refinement, applicability, diversification, and serialization. The only way for the future development of the industry.

Solid caustic soda can be divided into three types: bottled solid caustic soda, caustic soda and granular caustic soda from its shape. China's solid caustic soda product is mainly caustic flake solid caustic soda. The industry analysts believe that the current three major problems restrict the expansion of the solid alkali market.

One is the small scale and overcapacity. The industry as a whole has not yet become large-scale and clustered. According to reports, there are currently more than 200 solid alkali producers in China, mainly in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Sichuan, Tianjin and Shandong. Because the liquid caustic soda product is not only limited by the transportation radius, but also has high transportation cost, the solid-alkali processing enterprises are mostly adjacent to the chlor-alkali enterprises. At the same time, the chlor-alkali enterprises are distributed in areas with the most concentrated distribution of coal and power resources. As most of China's solid alkali industries are private enterprises, the industry as a whole is characterized by "many enterprises, small scale, high energy consumption, and idle production capacity."

According to incomplete statistics, as of the end of October 2010, the total processing capacity of China's solid caustic soda was approximately 7 million tons/year, but the average processing capacity of enterprises was only around 30,000 tons/year. Among them, there are nearly 30 chlor-alkali enterprises that have their own solid caustic soda processing facilities. Their total production capacity is 3 million tons/year, accounting for about 43% of the country's total capacity. In the first 10 months of this year, the operating rate of China's solid alkali production enterprises only remained at around 50%. Due to the large number of companies and the small scale of production, it is difficult for the protokali market to form a unified organism. Price confusion and arbitrariness exist in different regions and even the same region. Vicious competition leads to an unordered rise or fall in prices, which makes the company and the entire industry face long-term high prices. risk.

The second is that the level of technology and equipment is backward, the product cost is too high, and the market competitiveness is relatively weak. There is still a certain gap between the level of technical equipment in China's solid alkali industry and the international advanced level. Although domestic caustic soda production capacity already has a certain scale, the production capacity of a single set of devices is difficult to reach the advanced level in foreign countries. Most of the caustic soda production plants in China use conventional batch-type nickel-based cast iron caulking methods. The difference is that the fuels used vary. Most plants still use coal as fuel, and a few plants use by-product hydrogen or heavy oil. Coal is made into gas for fuel, etc., but there are problems of labor intensity, poor operating environment, low thermal efficiency, high energy consumption, and serious pollution. At present, only a few companies in China have introduced foreign advanced continuous film evaporation salt production process.

It is understood that in recent years, the domestic protopine market has been seriously oversupply, forcing some companies to find ways to move to the international market. The export of China's solid alkali products is mainly protopine, while barrel alkali and granules are relatively small, mainly flowing to South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, South America and other regions. Due to the high cost of products due to the backwardness of technical equipment, combined with electricity, fuel As coal and logistics costs continue to rise, it becomes increasingly difficult to establish price advantages. At present, there are only a few enterprises that can stabilize the export of caustic soda in Xinjiang Tianye, Xinjiang Zhongtai, Inner Mongolia Sanlian, Ningxia Yinglite, Shandong Binhua, Tianjin Suihua and Southwest China Shuhua.

The third is that companies do not have differentiated production measures for the market, and the quality of products varies greatly. In particular, some of the solid-base products also caused damage to downstream users, causing them to shift to the use of foreign high-quality products, making it difficult for the domestic market share of solid-alkali enterprises to increase.

The downstream users of solid caustic soda are extensive, covering industries such as refined petroleum, printing and dyeing, textile fiber, papermaking, chemical and chemical reagents, rubber, leather, metallurgy, electroplating, ceramics, and instruments. The quality of solid caustic soda is different and even Demanding requirements. However, although China currently has national standards, the raw salt impurities used in the production of raw materials for solid alkali enterprises are different, resulting in different product quality and quality. The main raw material for the production of caustic soda is sodium Chloride, and the extraction of sodium chloride mainly comes from sea salt, lake salt and well salt. In addition to sodium, it contains other impurities, mainly inorganic ions such as calcium and magnesium. In the Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Ningxia and other places where lake salt and well salt are the main raw materials, protopine contains more calcium and magnesium ions and is more likely to agglomerate, and it is easier to produce scale in the process of use, causing some impact on user's production equipment. , need to be cleaned in time. The caustic soda from Tianjin and Shandong provinces using sea salt as raw materials, Shandong Alkali tends to be mass industrialized production, and its quality varies greatly; Tianjin Alkali tends to produce high-quality products and can be used in medicine, food and other fields.

In view of this, industry experts have called for the development of China's solid alkali industry requires the country to issue relevant incentive policies, overcome three major problems, promote the development of the industry scale, clustering, while introducing foreign liquid caustic soda concentrated high-tech, at the same time, encourage technology Innovate, strive to develop domestic independent technology, drive domestic domestic solid alkali product structure adjustment, optimize, refine product standards, make solid alkali industry develop in the direction of refinement, applicability, diversification, and serialization, and further expand domestic solid alkali products Market space for scientific, healthy and sustainable development.