Asia phenol demand to grow by 6.6% per year – Mitsui Chemicals

16 June 2010 17:54  [Source: ICIS news]

BERLIN (ICIS news)--Phenol demand in Asia is expected to grow by 6.6% per year to over 5m tonnes/year by 2015, with China leading the growth, a company executive said on Wednesday.

Phenol demand in China was poised to grow at 9.7% per year from 2010 to 2015, due to robust demand from downstream bisphenol A (BPA) and phenolic resins sectors, Toshiaki Kasuya, deputy manager with Mitsui Chemicals, said in a speech at the 6th ICIS World Phenol-Acetone conference in Berlin, Germany.

China’s phenol demand was expected to reach 1.97m tonnes/year in 2015, which would account for 40% of the total demand in Asia, Kasuya added.

However, global phenol demand was expected to grow at a slower rate of 4.1% per year until 2015, driven by growth in the downstream BPA sector, he said.

Global demand would hit 10m tonnes/year in 2015 – up from 7.6m tonnes/year in 2009, according to Kasuya.

Despite the recent build-up of capacity in China, phenol supply would remain short until 2015, he said.

However, the shortfall was expected to drop from 400,000 tonnes in 2010 to 66,000 tonnes in 2015 as a number of phenol facilities were due to come on stream in the next couple of years, he added.

Similarly, China’s downstream BPA sector was expected to register strong growth of 10.6% by 2015, bolstered by healthy demand from the derivative polycarbonate (PC) and epoxy resins segments, he said.

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By: Liu Xin
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