The soaring price of mask "heart" meltblown cloth will usher in an inflection point.
On March 9, a reporter from Surging News (www.thepaper.cn) learned from relevant departments that the State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration has issued an urgent notice to the market supervision bureaus in 8 provinces and cities, including Zhejiang and Jiangsu, requesting the development of meltblown non-woven fabrics. Special price survey to ensure price stability.
Meltblown non-woven fabric, or meltblown for short, is the key material for the filtering function of masks. It is called the "heart" of medical masks and N95 masks. Because the fiber diameter of the meltblown cloth can reach 1 to 5 microns, it has good filterability, shielding, heat insulation and oil absorption.
Affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the use of masks nationwide has surged, and the meltblown cloth required to produce medical surgical masks and N95 masks has become a bottleneck in expanding mask production capacity. The price of meltblown cloth has also soared, from 20,000 yuan per ton to about 400,000 yuan per ton, and the unit price has risen nearly 20 times.
According to the National Development and Reform Commission, the daily production capacity and daily output of masks in China, including ordinary masks, medical masks, and medical N95 masks, have exceeded 100 million.
In addition to promoting the resumption of production of mask enterprises, the National Development and Reform Commission also fully supports qualified enterprises to switch to production of masks. However, with the increase in the number of mask production companies, the supply of mask raw materials has been in short supply, especially the supply of meltblown cloth has reached the point where there is no money to buy.
Relevant person in charge of a mask-switching company in Quzhou, Zhejiang Province once told Pengmei News (www.thepaper.cn) that in the docking group of raw material resources, due to the serious shortage of meltblown cloth, many middlemen began to sit on the ground and began to price. To 300,000 to 400,000 yuan per ton.
However, according to the reporter of surging news (www.thepaper.cn), the state ministries and commissions have noticed the increase in the price of meltblown cloth and have launched a special investigation.
It is understood that the State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration has recently issued an urgent notice to Tianjin, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Shandong, Henan, Guangdong and other 8 provinces and cities to conduct a special investigation on the price of meltblown nonwovens.
In order to further strengthen the price supervision of meltblown non-woven fabrics and ensure price stability, the State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration requires local market supervision authorities to conduct special investigations on the prices of meltblown non-woven fabrics from March 5 to March 10.
The State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration also requested in the above notice that "focus on investigating designated meltblown nonwovens enterprises and give priority to handling meltblown nonwovens price complaints. Any suspected violations shall be investigated and dealt with in accordance with the law."
At present, central enterprises have also joined the production team of meltblown cloth. Meltblown cloth uses polypropylene as the main raw material and is an important petrochemical product. Therefore, Sinopec has considerable basic advantages for the production of meltblown cloth. At the end of February, Sinopec decided to invest about 200 million yuan. Two companies, Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical and Jiangsu Yizheng Chemical Fiber, stepped up the construction of meltblown cloth production lines to cross-border production of much-needed meltblown cloth.
On March 7, Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical Meltblown Cloth Production Line has begun trial production of commercial meltblown cloth for the market. It is understood that its 2 meltblown cloth production lines and 3 spunbond fabric production lines can produce 4 tons of N95 meltblown cloth or 6 tons of medical flat mask meltblown cloth every day.
Surging news reporter Han Shengjiang