With the outbreak of COVID-19, the market price of meltblown fabrics in China seems to have taken the "roller coaster".
The original price before outbreak was approx. 2600 €/ton. With the outbreak in Wuhan this price increased to 84500 €/ton and go down after a few weeks to 19500 €/ton. With the outbreak in Europe, and later in the US, this price as rebounded from 19500 €/ton to 65000 €/ton - 25 times higher than the original price !
And the difficulties to find meltblown for face mask production, are bigger and bigger, with high requirements at order. Some require 'cash lock', other require 50 tons order, with first pay of 20% deposit.
According to the big data disclosed by ALIBABA International, the demand for medical masks on the website increased by 13769% from February to March ! The data shows that the meltblown cloth is the core material of the mask. However, since there are not many large manufacturers that can produce meltblown fabrics in China, the industry as a whole is small and scattered.
China Petrochemical Corp, the nation's largest oil refiner started two production lines to manufacture 4 metric tons of fabric that can be made into 1.2 million N95 respirators or six tons of fabric for 6 million surgical masks every day, according to the company, also known as Sinopec.
China Petrochemical Corp, the nation's largest oil refiner, plans to start production at eight more meltblown nonwoven fabric production lines in Jiangsu province by the middle of next month after commissioning two new units in Beijing.
Upon completion, the 10 production lines will be able to produce fabric for 3.6 million N95 respirators or 18 million surgical masks every day.
Regarding the increase in meltblown fabric prices, there are several major factors. One is the price increase of upstream raw materials, the second is the rise in labor costs, and the third is the cost of the company's equipment transformation. And last major factor: some unscrupulous operators took the opportunity to drive up prices and disrupt the market price order.
According to the China Industrial Textile Association, in the case of tight supply of meltblown fabrics and difficulty in reconciling in a short period of time, there have been a number of middlemen selling and selling, boarding and raising prices. Some people will sell meltblown cloth that has no electret treatment that cannot be used in the filter layer of the mask (the filtration effect is only 20%) and sell it to newly-launched mask companies.
Many insiders called for the development of standards for the mask filter industry in the later period to refine the standards for controlling the quality of the mask, and at the same time set up a special regulatory department to implement.
Because high meltblown prices don't always mean guaranteed high level of quality !
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