On July 13, at the methanol anti-dumping work conference and methanol market analysis meeting held in Beijing, representatives of major domestic methanol manufacturers discussed the extension of the anti-dumping investigation period of methanol by the Ministry of Commerce and reached an agreement to jointly appeal to relevant state departments An affirmative ruling was made in the methanol anti-dumping case to strive for a fair market environment for domestic methanol companies.

According to the latest situation introduced by the China Nitrogen Fertilizer Industry Association, the country’s current methanol production capacity has been severely impacted by a large number of low-priced foreign methanol imports, as well as the domestic methanol industry’s own overcapacity and low industrial concentration problems, as well as the impact of rising natural gas prices. Play only 54.8%, and the loss of the enterprise reaches 67.7%.

Wang Ru, general manager of Pingmei Lantian Chemical Co., Ltd., said that the import of a large amount of low-cost methanol has caused the domestic market price to fluctuate. The methanol only sold the price of mineral water, and its value deviated seriously from the price. When Zhongyuan Methanol Plant, a subsidiary of the company, was completed and put into operation in November 2005, it was the first domestic methanol plant built on the basis of the West-East Gas Pipeline Project in Southern Henan. However, starting in the second half of 2009, the prices of coal, transportation, electricity, and natural gas have been adjusted upwards, making companies no longer able to withstand the impact of low-priced imported methanol. At the beginning of June this year, Zhongyuan Methanol Plant was forced to suspend production, and the employees of the plant have gone home on holiday.

Wu Yun, general manager of Henan Coal and Chemical Industry Group, said that the company’s 500,000-ton/year methanol plant uses coal as a raw material. It was a key project of Henan Province during the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” in 2003. In the first half of 2010, the plant started and stopped, the output was only 65,000 tons, and a loss of 100 million yuan.

"If methanol anti-dumping is not a positive result, then all domestic methanol companies will die. The difference is only a matter of sooner or later. Companies that do not have coal resources will die sooner, and how long can companies with coal resources survive and compete? Have you ever had a foreign company that uses oilfield associated gas as a raw material?" said Yuan Jingming, general manager of Kingboard Natural Gas Chemical (Chongqing) Co., Ltd. helplessly. The company's methanol plant uses natural gas as a raw material and has a production capacity of 450,000 tons per year. Since its commissioning in 2007, it has successively invested more than 30 million yuan in energy-saving technological transformation, and the cost of methanol per ton has been reduced by more than 800 yuan. Even so, the company is still at a loss due to the impact of imported low-priced methanol.

Inner Mongolia Yuanxing Energy Co., Ltd. is a listed company. When it was completed, it filled the gap where there was no methanol production in Inner Mongolia. However, according to Wang Donggang, the company’s deputy general manager, since the low-price dumping of imported methanol in the second half of 2008, the company’s methanol industry has been losing money. If there is no other industry to make up for it, it might have gone bankrupt long ago, and hundreds of employees will be laid off. , And many of them are ethnic minority employees.

Data from the China Nitrogen Fertilizer Industry Association show that in 2009, my country imported 5.288 million tons of methanol, an increase of 268.8% year-on-year, a record high. The total amount of imported methanol accounted for 46.7% of my country's methanol output. In the first five months of 2010, my country imported 1.918 million tons of methanol. Among them, Saudi Arabia and other four countries involved in the case exported a total of 580,400 tons to my country, a year-on-year decrease of 64.4%. It can be seen that the methanol anti-dumping investigation by the Ministry of Commerce has played a certain inhibitory effect on the dumping of the country involved in the case to my country.

However, the company emphasized that it needs special attention that Iran, Qatar, Oman, and Chile and other countries that are not involved in the case have exported methanol to my country sharply. Some Gulf countries have large-scale methanol plants, low raw material prices (using oilfield associated gas as raw materials), and low logistics costs. However, there is no methanol consumption in their own countries. The target market is Asia, more accurately China. What worries the industry is that such dumping in the Gulf countries is not a short-term phenomenon, let alone a small amount of dumping, but a large amount of dumping, which is related to the survival of my country's methanol industry.

It is understood that there are currently more than 270 methanol production enterprises in my country, most of which are state-owned enterprises. If methanol anti-dumping is not an affirmative ruling, it will result in the closure of two-thirds of domestic methanol companies, hundreds of thousands of employees will be laid off, and hundreds of billions of investment cannot be recovered.

It is understood that methanol companies will report related issues to relevant departments in the near future. Industry insiders also said that in addition to the most urgent task of anti-dumping, methanol companies also need to think about how to implement industrial restructuring, resource integration, technological advancement, cost reduction, and actively explore downstream markets.