1, macroeconomic trends
As an important basic organic chemical raw material, methanol is widely used in the national economy. Macroeconomic trends will inevitably affect the market demand of methanol, and then affect the price of methanol. The popularization of methanol gasoline and the industrialization of methanol to olefins have further expanded new consumption areas and provided good development opportunities for methanol industry.
2. National policies
China's resource endowment is characterized by "rich coal, poor oil and little gas". With the decrease of oil resources and the increase of methanol production in the world today, methanol has become a trend as an alternative energy source. The main goals of methanol alternative energy are: methanol to dimethyl ether to replace civil liquefied petroleum gas and diesel oil, methanol fuel to replace gasoline, and methanol to olefin to replace traditional petrochemical raw materials. The state has issued a number of policies to encourage the development of methanol industry.
3. International energy prices
Because more than 90% of international methanol production facilities use natural gas as raw material, the fluctuation of natural gas price will definitely affect the fluctuation of international methanol price.
4. New production capacity at home and abroad
The expected consumption of methanol fuel, dimethyl ether and methanol to olefins has stimulated the large-scale construction of methanol. The development and utilization of natural gas has developed rapidly, especially in the Middle East, Latin America and North Africa, which has attracted the attention of many investors because of its abundant natural gas resources and low price.
5. Production reduction of large-scale devices at home and abroad.
Due to the increasing scale of methanol plant, the plant with an annual output of10 million tons has been put into production. Once these large or super-large factories are unexpectedly overhauled or shut down, it will affect the market supply and cause price fluctuations.
6. Downstream demand
Methanol is an important organic chemical raw material and the fourth largest chemical raw material in China after ethylene, propylene and benzene. Widely used in chemical industry, medicine, light industry, textile and other industries.
7. Production cost
Coal, natural gas and coke oven gas are used as raw materials for methanol production in China, in which coal is the main raw material, followed by natural gas, and the proportion of coke oven gas has increased in recent two years. Therefore, the prices of coal and natural gas indirectly affect the production cost of methanol.
8. Import and export
China is the largest consumer of methanol in the world and one of the fastest growing countries in the world. Import and export affect the supply and demand price of methanol.
9. Transportation costs
China's coal, natural gas and other energy bases are mainly distributed in the northwest, while the consumption areas are concentrated in East China and South China. At present, most of the methanol projects under construction and planned in China are located in the northwest areas such as Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi and Ningxia, while there are few railway lines for local methanol production enterprises, and most of them still export methanol mainly by automobile transportation. Generally speaking, the shortage of railway transportation capacity in the western region will still exist for a long time to come, and freight transportation will also show an upward trend. However, the characteristics of methanol varieties require the use of special tank cars for transportation, which is easy to cause empty car return and waste of capacity.
10, degree of price linkage at home and abroad
If the foreign methanol price is too low and the domestic methanol price is too high, it will inevitably lead to the continuous entry of foreign methanol into China and lower the domestic methanol price; On the other hand, if the foreign price is too high and the domestic methanol price is too low, the imported methanol will be significantly reduced, and domestic methanol producers will try their best to increase exports, thus raising the domestic methanol price.
1 1, weather factor
The influence of weather factors on methanol price mainly comes from two aspects: on the one hand, weather factors lead to changes in the output of methanol downstream products, mainly formaldehyde, which leads to changes in methanol price. On the other hand, force majeure such as bad weather or natural disasters often interferes with normal transportation, resulting in imbalance between supply and demand of methanol and price changes.
12, inventory factor
High inventory level and low price; Low inventory level and high price.