According to customs statistics, in the first half of 2024, China’s acetone imports totaled 139,500 tons, with an import amount of 122,592,871 US dollars, and an average price of 878.99 US dollars/ton, the import volume decreased by 32.02% from the same period last year, and the average price increased by 27.67% from the same period last year. With the continuous improvement of domestic acetone self-sufficiency rate, the import source is obviously squeezed, and the export way is constantly explored.
According to customs statistics, in the first half of 2024, China’s acetone import volume totaled 139,500 tons, and the average monthly import volume was 23,300 tons. From the import data, acetone imports decreased significantly compared with the same period last year, and from the average price of imports, compared with the average price of the same period last year, the trend is higher.
From the perspective of import sources, acetone imports in the first half of 2024 mainly come from the four major producing and marketing countries and regions, of which Thailand’s import sources ranked first, with imports of 43855.24 tons, accounting for 31.44%. Saudi Arabia’s import source is the second highest, with imports of 37,378.51 tons, accounting for 26.80%. Taiwan imports 31,823.19 tons, accounting for 22.82%. South Korea imported 23,408.87 tons, accounting for 16.78%. The above four places accounted for more than 99% of the total imports.
From the perspective of import registration, China’s acetone main import registration places are Guangdong Province, Jiangsu Province, Shandong Province, Shanghai, Zhejiang Province, Chongqing, Fujian Province and other places. Among them, Guangdong Province imports the most, up to 51909.21 tons, accounting for 37.22%, Jiangsu Province imports 28137.20 tons, accounting for 20.17%, Chongqing imports 21384.40 tons, accounting for 15.33%, Shandong Province imports 14602.35 tons. Accounting for 10.47%, Shanghai imports 13,944.37 tons, accounting for 10%, Zhejiang imports 9492.54 tons, accounting for 6.81%.
Among them, Guangdong province has A convenient reservoir area, and neighboring provinces will also take delivery from Dongguan Reservoir area in Guangdong Province. In addition, MMA, bisphenol A and isopropyl alcohol industries have plants operating in South China, among which isopropyl alcohol factories are Zhuhai Chang Chang and Huizhou Yuxin factories, and MMA industry has Jihua Yang equipment, which is optimistic about the demand for acetone. Therefore, Guangdong Province imported acetone mainly from Taiwan, China 17380 tons of goods, mostly general trade and import processing trade, Thailand 26237.03 tons of goods, are general trade, Saudi Arabia in 8292.18 tons of goods, are general trade.
Jiangsu Province is the main distribution center of acetone import trade, and the main sources of imported acetone are Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia. With the continuous installation of domestic phenol ketone devices, acetone imports began to shrink from 2023, and imports continued to shrink in the first half of 2024. Of course, Jiangsu Province is also one of the main consumers of acetone, so the demand for acetone contributes more. From the import data, Jiangsu Province mainly relies on Thailand 9803.54 tons of imported goods, are carried out in the general trade, Taiwan imports 9105.5 tons, of which the import processing trade accounted for 79.95%, the general trade imports only 1825.19 tons, South Korea imports 5754.64 tons of goods. And all in the way of import processing trade, Saudi Arabia imports only 3473.52 tons of goods, all in the way of general trade imports.
Chongqing is located in the southwest region, where there is no phenol ketone device, but the downstream MMA device is located here, especially in 2024, the downstream MMA industry Chongqing Yixiang added 150,000 tons/year MMA device, and the demand for acetone has increased significantly. In addition to the acetone supply from East China shipping supplement, other supplies need to be imported to fill, all need to be imported. The imported goods are mainly supplied by Saudi Arabia and South Korea, which are mainly imported by general trade and supplemented by import processing trade. Among them, 15,411.78 tons were imported from Saudi Arabia and 5,973 tons from South Korea.
Shandong Province is acetone downstream isopropyl alcohol industry is more concentrated in the province, this province imports acetone mainly from South Korea, of which in the first half of 2024 imports in 11,681.49 tons, Taiwan imports in 2,920.86 tons, all to feed processing trade, so also boost the isopropyl alcohol industry exports.
The area of Shanghai and Zhejiang is located in the East China region with convenient transportation, and there are rich downstream industries living here, so it also depends on part of the acetone import supply supplement. In the first half of 2024, the import volume of Saudi Arabia in Shanghai was 7,026.81 tons, the import volume of Thailand was 3,907.46 tons and the import volume of Singapore was 2,998.57 tons. Shanghai’s import sources are completely digested in general trade. Acetone imports in Zhejiang Province are mainly from Thailand, Saudi Arabia and Taiwan, with imports of 3907.21 tons, 3174.23 tons and 2410.22 tons.
In 2023-2024, domestic acetone devices will be put into production one after another, the supply of domestic goods will increase, the self-sufficiency rate will continue to rise, and the source of imported goods will gradually decrease. Imports are mainly based on contract operations, equipment parking and maintenance in the Middle East, individual months of contract can not be normally supplied, and the normal arrival of goods from Thailand, in summary, it is expected that the average monthly import volume in the second half of 2024 will be around 25,000 tons. The acetone downstream deep processing industry continues to expand capacity, and some isopropyl alcohol factories import acetone by processing trade of incoming materials. The domestic acetone supply is increasing, the downstream field gives priority to domestic sources, and the dependence on imported sources is gradually decreasing.
