Benzene imports in China increase by 170% in H1-05

29-Sep-05

In H1-2005, China produced 1.387 million tons of pure benzene, recording a 7% y-o-y. Imports saw a whooping increase of 170% y-o-y to 102,000 tons. China's benzene output for 2005 is predicted to exceed 2.7 million tons, whereas consumption is expected to spike above 3 million tons. This represents a 15.4% growth in consumption over the 2.6 million tons achieved in 2004. China's domestic pure benzene market has remained in a state of strong demand, high-speed growth and high prices since 2004, due to the hiking oil price and rapidly expanding production capacity of downstream products. Imports will continue to be mandatory to meet domestic demand this year, but dependence on imports will decline as production capacity develops at a fast pace in the years to come. It is estimated that the pure benzene production capacity would reach about 3.2 million tons by the end of 2005, and 4-5 million tons by 2007. Pure benzene market will maintain an upward trend in 2006, to meet shortfall created by rising demand of styrene and the accelerating equipment construction for alkylbenzene, phenol, nitrobenzene, cis-butenedioic anhydride and caprolactam.