14th China Methanol & Derivatives Forum 2015
Time：2015-03-17 -03-19location：shandong qingdaoshi
Against the backdrop of the nosedive of the crude oil market, bulk commodities witness a trend of decline on the whole. How will the methanol industry cope with challenges and seek the space of survival?
Some of MTO units, which were newly established in 2014, will be put into production, so capacity in 2015 will increase largely. Where are the future opportunities? What about the preparatory work for construction and operation of newly-increased MTO units?
Will China import and export market incur significant change on the premise of international methanol price’s linked decline?
Traditional downstream methanol industries are gloomy. Will they achieve further development and find way out in the future?
What are those points for attention in operation with change of the futures trading rules?
Why attend?
In 2014, methanol market encountered an unprecedented slump, and the methanol price showed a declining trend on the whole. In September 2014, natural gas price hike directly led to a lot of gas enterprises’ output reduction and suspension. Particularly in December 2014, the natural gas price dropped constantly due to nosedive of the crude oil market. In the meantime, methanol units for coal-to-olefins (CTO) project were put into production, so that China’s total methanol capacity exceeded 70 million tons.
In the second half of 2014, international oil price suffered a heavy blow and plummeted continuously from US$ 107 per barrel in June. As at the beginning of January 2015, both WTI and Brent fell below US$ 50, which stroke a serious blow at such energy industries as coal, natural gas, and shale gas and shale oil, etc.
In China, the oil price has dropped below the coal chemical products’ breakeven point, signifying that the coal chemical industry yields no profits. Some analysts said that if the oil price continues the trend of downturn, it is predicted that within two or three months, the coal chemical industry will take on a dilemma: more outputs result in more losses. As a result, a lot of coal chemical enterprises have to face the risk of cash flow rupture.
