Since August last year, domestic spandex prices have continued to soar. As of February 25, the average market price of 40D specifications was 57,000 yuan/ton, which is the same as in 2020. Compared with the lowest price in August (August 12), the increase was 84.47%. After the Spring Festival, the spandex industry started operating at a high level of 90%, but manufacturers are tight in supply
In addition, due to increased cost support pressure, some spandex manufacturers will not quote prices for the time being, and will not accept reservations for new orders. Talk one by one.
For example, a leading spandex company in Fujian has issued a price increase notice. Starting from the 24th, all spandex products of the company will leave the factory. The price has increased by 5,000-15,000 yuan/ton.
Currently, many large spandex factories are brewing a new round of price increases. I heard that after the Lantern Festival, the latest quotation will be released.
The increase is as high as 80.0%, and the inventory level is the lowest in the past 4 years!
Since August 2020, the price of spandex 40D has risen from 28,000 yuan/ton to the current level of about 50,000 yuan/ton, an increase of 78.6%, and the price difference of spandex 40D has increased from 15,000 yuan/ton. To the current price of more than 27,000 yuan/ton, the increase is as high as 80.0%.
From the demand side, since the third quarter of 2020, the downstream textile and apparel industry has been booming, driving the demand for spandex to improve rapidly. With the change in consumption concepts and the upgrading of consumer demand, consumers have more and more demands for sports and leisure clothing, and have higher and higher functional requirements for clothing. The application scope of spandex continues to expand, the addition ratio increases, and the apparent demand grows steadily. And due to the unique elasticity and increasingly differentiated functionality of spandex products, there will be no high-quality substitutes in the foreseeable future; as the new coronavirus vaccine has been successfully developed and large-scale vaccination has begun, overseas economic recovery trends are significant, and overseas orders have increased sharply. Return flow, spandex exports have increased significantly. Inventory days are as low as 13 days, and inventory levels are at a nearly four-year low.
From the supply side, CR5 has increased from 45% in 2014 to 67% currently. Industry reshuffle has further intensified and industry concentration has further increased. In 2020, domestic spandex production capacity reached 890,000 tons, a year-on-year growth of 3.5%. The expansion of spandex production capacity has come to an end, and many backward small production capacities have been shut down or are on the verge of shutting down. There will be no new spandex production capacity in the industry in the next year, and the new production capacity after one year will also be concentrated in leading companies such as Huafeng Spandex, Xinxiang Chemical Fiber, and Taihe New Materials. The industry’s leading advantages will be consolidated and profitability will be further improved. However, from a comprehensive perspective on the supply and demand side and the cost side, the downstream market has gradually recovered, with circular knitting machine lace and woven yarn-covered warp knitted cotton bales gradually reaching 40-70%. The increase in the price of raw material PTMEG has also further pushed up the price of spandex.
Experts from Xinxiang Chemical Fiber have judged that from the perspective of the next three years, spandex will have a certain growth every year and its application range is very wide. If the market maintains a reasonable expansion rate, market demand will continue Growth, especially sports fabrics, casual fabrics, and home clothes will have good room for growth in the future. Therefore, the current downstream is not restocking but sustainable growth.
“There is no pressure on the entire market in the first half of the year. The operating rate of downstream spandex is increasing. There are also many new machines. The application scope has also become wider. The spandex content is also increasing. The spandex content has been At 5-6%, the content of sports fabrics is now 15-20%, and the demand has grown very much.” Experts related to Xinxiang Chemical Fiber believe that European and American factories have less inventory, and terminal demand is replenishing significantly as the epidemic in Europe and the United States improves. International ocean freight prices are also increasing significantly, so at least the first half of the year is relatively optimistic.
The Shenwan Hongyuan Securities Chemical Research Group also believes that the spandex factory has no inventory of basic conventional products from November last year to now. The volume of downstream orders, especially foreign orders, has exploded, and there are queues to buy. Industry inventories are always very low. With the recovery of downstream logistics and the resumption of work and production after the Spring Festival, the export volume of spandex has increased significantly. Judging from the current understanding of downstream supply and demand, inventories of enterprises and downstream factories are low and at historically low levels, and both production and sales are booming.
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