China’s total fertilizer output hit its lowest point in 2017 over the past nine years, due to more stringent environmental protection inspections and higher pollutant discharge standards, which have eliminated outmoded fertilizer capacity from the market, according to market intelligence firm CCM.
“Supply-side structural reform has further reduced domestic capacity. On top of that, operating rates of China’s fertilizer industry remained low in 2017 because of smaller demand triggered by falling grain prices,” CCM said.
At the end of February, the National Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China issued the 2017年国民经济和社会发展报告，化肥总产量为6184万吨，比2016年减少943万吨。
根据 CCM:
“As environmental protection and work safety inspections become more frequently in China, phosphate fertilizer companies are likely to curb production. Also, the elimination of outmoded capacity will continue in 2018, leading to balanced market supply and demand. Prices of raw materials such as 磷矿 and synthetic ammonia are possible to rise in 2018. Therefore, the operating costs of phosphate fertilizer manufacturers will keep an upward trend, forcing them to quote for higher prices. The actual transaction prices, on the other hand, will also be determined by downstream demand and market supply. Along with the fertilizer output, China’s fertilizer exports decreased as well. China exported 2.25 million tonnes of fertilizers in Dec. 2017. In the past 12 months, China’s overall fertilizer export volume and value declined by 8.9% YoY and 7.1% YoY. The trend has shown the accuracy of the CCM 的预测 那是在 2017 年初制作的。
“According to CCM’s predictions, the year 2017 would show a significant decrease in the output, demand, as well as the export volume of fertilizers in China. The main factor, that would have a huge impact on the trend was the effort of China’s government in implementing new environmental protection measurements. The reasons that the whole market will remain on a low level in China in 2017 have been analyzed to be mainly due to the continuing process of de-capacity.”