The global chemical new materials industry maintains rapid growth and production scale continues to expand
New chemical materials refer to new materials produced by chemical synthesis, as well as some composite materials obtained through secondary processing based on new chemical materials. They are an important part of the new materials industry. High-end new chemical materials mainly refer to advanced polymer materials, but also include functional membrane materials, electronic chemicals, special coatings, special adhesives, inorganic functional materials (graphene, nanomaterials, etc.), new energy materials, etc. Accelerating the development of high-end new chemical materials is of great strategic significance for promoting technological innovation, supporting industrial upgrading, and building a strong manufacturing country.
The global new chemical materials industry maintains a rapid growth trend
New generation information technology and new materials are the two "chassis technologies" of the manufacturing industry. New generation information technology is the driving force of the fourth industrial revolution, and new materials are an indispensable material basis for supporting strategic emerging industries and major projects. The deep integration of information technology and new materials promotes the high-end development of the manufacturing industry.
The global new materials industry is developing rapidly and its scale is constantly expanding. In 2023, the global new materials output value will reach 7.2 trillion US dollars. According to statistics from the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation, the global output of new chemical materials will exceed 110 million tons in 2023, with an output value of approximately US$470 billion, and is expected to reach US$480 billion in 2025. The new chemical materials industry is an important area for future scientific and technological development and economic growth, the key to building a world manufacturing power, and a hot spot for comprehensive national strength competition.
From a global perspective, the monopoly of the new materials industry has intensified, and the technical barriers of high-end materials are becoming increasingly apparent. Large multinational companies have taken a leading role in the development of most high-tech and high-value-added new materials products by relying on their advantages in technology research and development, capital, and talents, and using technology and patents as barriers. Leading companies are concentrated in the United States, Europe, and Japan, and the overall competition pattern presents a three-tier echelon. The first echelon is companies with a very mature global layout, high global visibility, and rich experience in the chemical industry, such as Dow Chemical, BASF, ExxonMobil, Mitsubishi Chemical, etc.; the second echelon is the top companies in developed countries. These companies also have a global layout, but still have a focus, such as Evonik, 3M, Mitsui Chemicals, Air Products, etc., which have a deep layout in their own regions and their revenue is mainly in their own regions; the third echelon is mainly companies that focus on their own countries. With the support of governments of various countries (emerging economies such as Brazil, India, and South Africa), they are in a state of striving to catch up and undertake industrial transfer.
The global chemical new materials industry has maintained a rapid growth trend with the development of advanced manufacturing. It is characterized by high-tech leadership, new product iteration, industrial expansion, and expansion of demand, and is developing in the direction of greening, low-carbonization, refinement, and conservation. The innovation process of new material research and development and preparation methods has accelerated. The emergence of new material design methods represented by material genetic engineering has greatly reduced the research and development cycle and research and development costs of new materials, and accelerated the innovation process of new materials.
my country's new chemical materials industry has huge room for future development
my country's new materials industry production system is basically complete, and the industry scale is growing continuously. It has formed the world's most comprehensive and largest material industry system. my country's output of more than 100 materials such as steel, non-ferrous metals, rare earth metals, cement, glass, chemical fibers, advanced energy storage materials, photovoltaic materials, silicone, polyurethane raw materials, superhard materials, special stainless steel, etc. ranks first in the world. A new material innovation system with enterprises as the main body, market-oriented, and combining "production, learning, research and application" has been gradually established. Relying on regional resource advantages, new material industry clusters such as the Bohai Rim, the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, the central and western regions, and the northeast region have been formed.
At present, my country's new chemical materials industry has a certain foundation for development. In 2022, the domestic sales of new chemical materials will be about 900 billion yuan, 2.7 times that of 2015, accounting for about 30% of the global output value. But overall, the overall technical strength still lags behind developed countries and regions such as the United States and Europe, and faces some challenges and problems:
First, the increase in production capacity of major chemical products is far greater than the growth in demand. For example, the growth rate of synthetic resin production in my country is relatively fast, while the growth rate of consumption in traditional industries is relatively slow, and the contradiction between domestic supply and demand is more prominent; the growth rate of consumption of most basic chemical raw materials is showing a trend of continuous slowdown. With the expansion of production capacity, the total production capacity and consumption ratio of 24 major chemical products in China in 2022 will rise from 110% in 2021 to 118%, and the phenomenon of oversupply is intensifying.
Second, the structural contradictions of major chemical products are more prominent. With the rapid development of domestic high-end manufacturing and strategic emerging industries, the demand for high-end new materials continues to grow, but the domestic petrochemical industry lacks innovation capabilities and the level of green and safe development is not high, which restricts the high-end development of the industry. In 2022, the average self-sufficiency rate of high-end chemical materials in my country was about 54%, and some products had a large annual import volume and high external dependence for a long time, such as metallocene polyethylene, which had an external dependence of more than 90%. The foreign trade deficit of my country's petrochemical industry is mainly concentrated in the fields of high-end synthetic materials, high-end membrane materials, high-performance fibers and composite materials, high-purity reagents, and high-end electronic chemicals.
Third, market competition is more intense. As the contradiction between supply and demand intensifies, the market competition for bulk general products becomes more intense. The market competition has shifted from single product competition to integrated competition in the entire industrial chain. The pattern of integrated development of large, medium and small enterprises is taking shape, and the strategic collaborative development model of complementary industrial chains will become the norm in the industry. The industrial layout of more enterprises will shift from expanding the scale of bulk basic products to strengthening, refining and optimizing refined products, and "specialization, precision and innovation" will become the mainstream of market creation. The pace of multinational companies' sole investment in the domestic high-end market is also accelerating.
Fourth, the urgency of conquering the key core technologies of high-end materials is becoming more and more prominent. Since the 13th Five-Year Plan, most of the newly put into production high-end polyolefin projects in China have introduced technologies from multinational companies. my country's petrochemical enterprises still do not master the core technologies of large-scale complete sets of technologies, high-end products, and core equipment such as high-purity electronic chemicals, some key catalysts, medical high-end membrane materials, high-performance fibers and composite materials, and carbonization furnaces for carbon fiber production lines. There is still a huge gap compared with international leading companies in terms of technology engineering and results industrialization.
At present, although facing many challenges, my country's chemical new materials industry has huge room for future development. Terminal manufacturing companies are accelerating the localization of high-end materials, and the demand for localization of new chemical materials is urgent. In the future, there is huge room for domestic materials to replace imports in high-end polyolefins, engineering plastics, high-performance fibers, functional membrane materials and electronic chemicals. At the same time, domestic downstream emerging industry users have a strong demand for high-end chemical new materials, providing new market opportunities for the chemical materials industry.
In terms of the innovation chain, domestic basic research on materials is increasingly valued. With the improvement of my country's scientific and technological development level and the changes in the international environment, original innovation capabilities have become a key factor in my country's further enhancement of its international competitiveness, and the importance of basic research has gradually been highly valued by the country. In the field of chemistry and materials science, my country's research activity ranks first in the world. Taking 2022 as an example, the number of cutting-edge research ranked in the top three in this field in my country accounts for 92.31%, and the research frontier heat index is about 2.5 times that of the second-ranked United States; large scientific facilities are more closely connected with material research, playing the role of a source of original innovation.
In terms of the industrial chain, my country has the advantages of the entire industrial chain from crude oil extraction to refining, from raw materials (monomers) to processes, products, processing, applications, and recycling. After 40 years of innovative development, Sinopec has formed a raw material system mainly based on oil, coal and natural gas, supplemented by needle coke, biomass, etc., and is accelerating the integration of the "dual chains". The main chemical material technologies such as synthetic resins, synthetic rubbers, and synthetic fibers have been industrialized, and some high-end products have made breakthroughs. It is also accelerating the layout of the field of green resource utilization of waste materials, widely developing physical recycling and chemical recycling technologies to solve the problem of reuse of waste polymer materials, and using resource utilization technology to solve the pollution problems of waste and the resource utilization problems of hydrocarbons.
