New Material: Understand The Production Process Of Polyester Bottle Slice

　　 Physicochemical properties and industrial status of polyester bottle flakes:

The downstream product of PTA and ethylene glycol, polyethylene terephthalate, namely polyester chip, can be divided into fiber grade polyester chip, film polyester chip and introduced bottle grade polyester chip, namely bottle chip, according to its downstream application. Polyester bottle sheet is a white granular solid under normal temperature. Because of its good plasticity, transparency, strong barrier and other advantages, polyester bottle sheet is usually used in beverage, food packaging and other fields, and also has some applications in construction, decoration and other fields.

Production process of polyester bottle tablets: terephthalic acid (PTA) and ethylene glycol (MEG) as the raw material, the direct esterification method is the current mainstream process. The mainstream bottle grade PET production is a two-step synthesis process (CP+SSP) using polyester process+solid phase polycondensation and viscosity increasing process. Polyester Process (CP Phase) is to take PTA and MEG as the main raw materials, add additives in the reaction process, under the role of catalyst, the melt generated after esterification and polycondensation reaction is filtered to produce basic PET chips, and then through solid phase continuous polymerization of solid phase polycondensation and viscosity increasing process (SSP phase), the finished product is produced.

Fundamentals of polyester bottle flakes: In recent years, the production area of global bottle flakes with rapid expansion is still in China. At present, China accounts for more than 40% of the global production capacity, of which the production capacity has expanded more since 22 to 23 years. At present, China has become a major exporter of polyester bottle flakes, mainly in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, followed by South America and Africa. At present, the capacity agglomeration in China is obvious, and the concentration ratio has increased significantly in recent years. The capacity of the top major manufacturers accounts for more than 80%. In terms of demand, the current main demand still comes from food and beverage packaging, and downstream terminals are gradually increasing industrial concentration.

Polyester bottle slice futures foundation: bottle slice generally continues the contract stability of polyester industrial chain varieties, which is conducive to industrial participation and has strong liquidity. After the listing of polyester bottles and chips, the whole industry chain will be more complete, and enterprises will be more convenient to participate in risk management in the futures market.

As a very important link in the downstream of polyester, bottle flakes play a very important role in national life. In addition to the beverage packaging we are familiar with, bottle pieces have many uses in industry, architecture, decoration, printing and other aspects. As another important variety of polyester industry, bottle chips will also make up an important part of the futures derivatives market in this important industrial field. When the bottle tablet is to be launched, this paper will analyze and sort out the process flow of the bottle tablet market, global and domestic supply and demand.

　　 Physicochemical properties and industrial position of polyester bottle flakes

Polyester bottle slice is a kind of polyester chip, its chemical name is polyethylene terephthalate, which is the downstream product of PTA and ethylene glycol. According to its downstream application, polyester chip can be divided into fiber grade polyester chip, film polyester chip, and bottle grade polyester chip to be introduced in this article, namely bottle slice. In daily life, bottle grade polyester chips are used in beverage, food packaging and other fields, as well as in construction, decoration and other fields. The quality benchmarking of the subject matter of this bottle contract is the National Standard of the People's Republic of China Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resin for bottles ", because the production technology of bottle pieces is mature and the degree of standardization is high, it is relatively easy to inspect, and the quality gap is relatively limited.

Bottle grade polyester chips belong to the downstream variety in the polyester industry chain. Unlike staple filament and other categories, which are mostly reprocessed in the textile field, bottle grade polyester chips are basically in the field of terminal use.

Polyester bottle flakes are white granular solids at room temperature. Because of their good plasticity, transparency, strong barrier and other advantages, they are often used to produce bottle packaging containers, such as food and beverage, and even packaging of daily necessities such as cosmetics. According to their sub categories, polyester bottle flakes can be divided into water bottle, oil bottle, carbonic acid and hot filling.

After the listing of polyester bottle chips, the whole industry chain support from oil products to PX, then to PTA, and finally to downstream products has really been realized. Polyester bottle chip enterprises can carry out various risk management operations throughout the industry chain through the variety of the industry chain, such as the guarantee of production plans or the locking of production profits.

　　 Production process of polyester bottle slice

Polyester bottle flakes are formed by polymerization of polyester basic chips in solid state and by increasing viscosity. Polyester bottle sheet has the advantages of safety, portability, environmental protection, etc., so it can maintain the quality of beverages and foods for a long time. At the same time, its recycling value is also very high, and it is one of the plastic materials with the highest recycling rate in the world.

To produce bottle grade PET, it is necessary to first produce conventional PET with an intrinsic viscosity of 0.66 to 0.68. Then the regular PET The viscosity of bottle grade PET can be increased by solid phase viscosity increasing under certain conditions. At present, conventional PET production processes mainly include DMT method and PTA DMT method, namely transesterification method, is the transesterification reaction of dimethyl terephthalate (DMT) and ethylene glycol, and then polycondensation into PET; PTA method is a direct esterification method, which uses terephthalic acid (PTA) and ethylene glycol as raw materials. There are two solid phase tackifying processes: vacuum solid phase polycondensation and inert gas fluidized bed continuous solid phase polycondensation.

Due to low raw material consumption, safe production, short process and low project investment, the technical path of the mainstream chemical reaction in the domestic PET industry is direct esterification, that is, direct esterification of high-purity terephthalic acid (PTA) and ethylene glycol, and polycondensation to polyester. The current mainstream bottle grade PET production is the two-step synthesis process (CP+SSP) of polyester process+solid phase polycondensation and viscosity increasing process. Polyester Process (CP Stage) is to use PTA and ethylene glycol as main raw materials, under the action of catalyst, the melt generated after esterification and polycondensation reaction is filtered to produce basic PET chips. Solid phase polycondensation and viscosity increasing process (SSP stage) is a solid phase continuous polymerization process. PET polycondensation products with a certain molecular weight undergo condensation polymerization in the solid state to increase the molecular weight of chips and improve the intrinsic viscosity, and take away ethylene glycol, acetaldehyde and other by-products through nitrogen, finally achieving the purpose of viscosity increasing, dealdehyde and improving the crystallinity, and obtaining the final bottle grade PET products.

In terms of cost, as polyester bottle pieces are the same as other categories, the raw materials are PTA and ethylene glycol, and the proportion of PTA is 0.855 And 0.335 ethylene glycol. In addition, the manufacturer will also get a certain processing fee on this basis, but the specific processing profit varies due to the different capacity of the manufacturer's devices, the time of production, and the fuel cost. In general, the cost of bottle pieces changes greatly with the cost of raw materials. This year, with the increase of production devices, the optimization of the device process, the overall cost is relatively stable, In the later period, there may be a continuous downward trend.

　 Global basic supply and demand

In the past 10 years, bottle flakes have been in the process of capacity expansion. The global bottle flake capacity has expanded from 30.87 million tons in 2019 to 37.86 million tons in 2023. In 2019 and 2023, the number of units put into production is large, and the capacity growth rate is about 15%. In recent years, the output has also achieved a major breakthrough. By the end of 2023, the global output will remain above 31.7 million tons, and the overall supply will develop rapidly. However, in the past few years, due to overseas epidemic heroes, the capacity expansion of multi headed enterprises was limited, which led Chinese local enterprises to increase investment in bottle and chip production capacity.

China is still the world's largest polyester bottle and chip production capacity. By the end of 2023, China's production capacity accounted for 41% of the world's production capacity, reaching 37.86 million tons. Five years ago, China's production capacity was 30.87 million tons, accounting for 34% of the world's total production capacity. In recent years, China's production base and capacity growth rate have both ranked first in the world. Outside China, the largest production capacity is located in North America, but the overall growth rate is relatively slow in recent years. In addition, Europe, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and other regions are also more important producers of polyester bottle chips.

In addition, in recent years, because domestic investment has paid more attention to the bottle slice field, many manufacturers have formed cooperation with overseas upstream and downstream manufacturers. After 2024, domestic funded devices will gradually be put into production abroad. At present, the most important manufacturers in the world, Yisheng, Sanfangxiang, China Resources and Wankai, are all in China, and their production capacity accounts for a relatively high proportion. In recent years, the overall industry concentration of polyester bottle chips has also become increasingly high.

In terms of demand, the main global consumption fields of polyester bottle tablets are still concentrated in food and beverage packaging, of which 35% is for water bottles, 22% for carbonated bottles, 26% for other packaging and containers, and 15% for packaging. And from the perspective of downstream development, the demand for polyester bottle tablets in the future will be more concentrated in the field of food and daily consumer goods.

Basic domestic supply and demand

After the large-scale production in 2023, the development of polyester bottle flakes in China has reached a new stage. In 23 years, the domestic production was 4.5 million tons, and the production capacity growth rate was more than 30%. Under the massive production, since the second half of 23 years, the profit of polyester bottle flakes has been significantly suppressed, and the overall profit has declined significantly.

In terms of industrial pattern, China's polyester bottle sheet production capacity is as mentioned above, concentrated in Yisheng, Sanfangxiang, China Resources and Wankai, with a high degree of industrial concentration, CR4 has reached 83%. In the past few years, the polyester bottle film industry has been loyal to the industry at the stage of spontaneous capacity adjustment. Some small-scale manufacturers with lower competitiveness have been gradually eliminated. At present, leading enterprises basically occupy most of the supply market. In addition, in 2024, there will still be about 6.1 million tons of device capacity put into production for domestic polyester bottle flakes, and there will also be at least 3.1 million tons of capacity increase in 25 years and later. The overall pattern of bottle flakes is under pressure of gradual excess.

In addition, in terms of production capacity areas, the main units of Eason are located in the Dalian plant and the Hainan plant, while the China Resources unit is located in Zhuhai, Guangdong, Jiangyin, Jiangsu and Changzhou, and the Vulcan unit is located in Chongqing and Zhejiang. Compared with the production pattern of upstream PTA, it is distributed in Zhejiang, Liaoning, Jiangsu, Guangdong and other regions, and the production capacity of polyester bottle flakes is significantly more concentrated. More than 50% of the devices are distributed in East China, followed by South China and Northeast China.

After nearly two years of large-scale production cycle in China, the supply pressure has emerged, and enterprises have obviously begun to increase their export. China's polyester bottle pieces have almost doubled their export volume in the past few years. The current bottle piece export volume has been about 4.8 million tons per year. Although the export has fluctuated in the past stage due to weakening overseas demand and superimposed trade protectionism, However, on the whole, domestic production capacity will continue to choose export expansion as a channel to increase market digestion. Overlaid with the limited expansion of overseas production capacity in recent two years, the new production capacity of the world's major bottle chips is in China or funded by Chinese companies, and domestic supply and export has become the trend of the bottle chip market in the later period. In the half year of 2014, the export volume has reached 2.75 million tons, and it is expected that the annual export volume will continue to increase by more than 20%.

After basically achieving self-sufficiency, China's exports have reached 30% of the output. In terms of export categories, as the overall demand growth is still in the Asia Pacific region, the overall export destinations are still concentrated in Southeast Asia and some Central Asia regions. In recent years, the demand in Africa and South America has also increased. The overall demand in Europe is saturated, and the import volume has declined year by year, It is now in a very low position.

In terms of terminal demand, soft drinks and packaging are still the main demand in China. At present, the proportion of packaging categories and beverage use terminals has reached more than 98% of the domestic demand. In addition, in recent years, the end customers have also gradually become centralized, such as Nongfu Shanquan, Wahaha, Ipoh and other large food and beverage companies, whose consumption has gradually become the main vane of the bottle slice market.