Metallurgy / Chemicals / Rubber & Plastics

According to media reports, Gazprom announced that its Nord Stream-1 pipeline, which transports natural gas to Europe, could not resume gas supply as planned. Russia has shut down the Nord Stream pipeline indefinitely, and the uncertainty of natural gas supply in Europe has increased again. Earlier, Russia said that European inventories could not guarantee that they could survive the winter safely. If the EU sets a ceiling on the price of Russian pipeline gas, the EU may no longer receive Russian gas imports.

Natural gas is an important industrial energy source and a raw material for some chemicals in Europe. BASF, a European producer of MDI and TDI, has said that in Europe, 60% of the natural gas it buys is used for energy production, and the remaining 40% is used for production. Basic chemicals. The European production capacity of MDI and TDI accounts for more than 30% of the global production capacity, mainly concentrated in Germany. On August 12, Covestro’s 300,000-ton TDI plant in Germany experienced force majeure due to chlorine leakage, and supply is expected to be resumed after November 30. In addition, BASF’s 300,000-ton TDI plant in Germany was shut down for maintenance at the end of April. After restarting, the current global available TDI production capacity is 1.93 million tons, accounting for only 55% of the total production capacity. According to Baichuan Yingfu, on September 5, the domestic TDI market continued to run at a high level. The latest TDI price of Shanghai C factory this week was 18,700 yuan / ton (the average price on Friday was 18,100 yuan / ton). The factory will increase exports to Europe. There is no guarantee of supply in the trade market this month.

Analysts believe that nearly 30% of the world's MDI/TDI supply will be affected if the supply of natural gas for industrial use in Europe is interrupted and the corresponding chemical plants are stopped/reduced. Although thanks to low-priced energy stocks + long-term supply + government subsidies, European companies have not yet fully felt the pressure of rising energy prices, but the rise in energy prices next year is expected to be fully reflected in the costs of European companies. Considering that the second half of the year is the traditional hurricane season in North America, the supply-side disturbance variables will still be large in the future, and the domestic gold, nine silver and ten peak seasons are approaching, and the follow-up price of TDI is expected to rise. At present, domestic factories are operating at full capacity. In the first half of the year, TDI's domestic export was at a high level. It is expected that the export volume will increase in the future, which will obviously benefit the leading enterprises in the industry.