Blind capacity expansion puts glufosinate-ammonium in possible predicament 06-06-2016

Wang Jianwo, President of Hunan Association of Professional Prevention and Control for Crop Diseases and Pests.


Source: Bing

 

* All the opinions presented here merely belong to the author and to the author alone, they do not necessarily represent CCM ' s points of view.

 

The use of glufosinate-ammonium, a potential substitute for paraquat and glyphosate, is recently becoming greatly diffused, but, on a market share matter, it is still far behind paraquat and glyphosate, and its development is impeded by the blind expansion of production capacity.


The market price of glufosinate-ammonium TC has now dropped from USD54,208.94/t (RMB350,000/t) to USD20,909.16/t (RMB135,000/t), which makes it meagerly profitable or even not profitable at all for enterprises. Industry insiders have revealed that some small-scale production manufacturers have gradually stopped producing glufosinate-ammonium and some are even planning to exit the industry. While all the large-scale production manufacturers still increase their inputs to compete for market shares.

 

Blind capacity expansion has brought unexpected troubles – the irrational market competition and price war.

 

An unbalanced supply-demand relationship is bound to lead to market fluctuation, with over-demand resulting in a price rise and over-supply causing price falls. It is known that glufosinate-ammonium's production capacity has been expanding since 2015, and this caused unexpected troubles to the irrational market competition and price war.

 

"If we do not control its capacity expansion, glufosinate-ammonium is bound to become soon a suffering comrade of glyphosate. Now that disordered competition is increasing in the market, many enterprises are forced to stop production," stated Zhao Jianqin, director of HebeiVeyong Bio-Chemical Co., Ltd. (HebeiVeyong).


Capacity expansions of glufosinate-ammonium at home and abroad:

 

Abroad: Bayer CropScience AG (Bayer CropScience) is further expanding the capacity of glufosinate-ammonium TC and intermediates as it invested USD200 million and USD5 million in constructing a glufosinate-ammonium intermediate project and a glufosinate-ammonium TC expansion project respectively.


After a construction period of two years, said projects are expected to be put into production in mid-2017 and, when that time comes, Bayer CropScience'sglufosinate-ammonium will break through 12,000 t/a.

 

Home: HebeiVeyong initiated the construction of a 1,000 t/a glufosinate-ammonium TC project based on its 450 t/a production line. Also, its 3,000 t/a glufosinate-ammonium TC project is being planning.

 

Zhejiang Funong Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (formerly Zhejiang Yongnong Chem. Ind. Co., Ltd.) already owns a capacity of 3,000 t/a forglufosinate-ammonium TC.

 

Lier Chemical Co., Ltd.'s glufosinate-ammonium TC capacity has reached 1,600 t/a and another 2,000 t/a project is being constructed, a glufosinate-ammonium TC project (design capacity: 17,600 t/a) has been included in the future planning as well.

 

Sichuan FuhuaTongda Agro-chemical Technology Co., Ltd. (FuhuaTongda)'s 12,000 t/a glufosinate-ammonium project invested in two phases has been put on record.

 

Inner Mongolia Jiaruimi Fine Chemical Co., Ltd. speeds up the construction of a 3,000 t/a glufosinate-ammonium project, the first production line (600 t/a) has been put into operation and the other four will be completed within two years.



 

De-capacity can boost the sustainable development of the glufosinate-ammonium industry.

 

Sun Shubao, President of China Crop Protection Industry Association pointed out that de-capacity, a technical innovation, and safety in production are necessary for the sustainable development of the glufosinate-ammonium industry.


Now, the overcapacity of some pesticides has become one of the dangers for the transformation and upgrading of China's pesticide industry. For the pesticide industry nowadays, China should insist on the innovation-oriented strategy, and extend the industrial chain from low to high level by improving the enterprises' technological ability in order to solve the overcapacity.

 

"Enterprises must change the traditional production and management modes through innovations in technology and business and also actively participate in the new global technology reform to achieve improvement in both quality and cost advantage," said Chen Chengxin, president of Rosi Chemical Co., Ltd. (Rosi Chemical).


In recent years, Rosi Chemical has taken efforts in the production route, product quality and product yield, developing as a result a new production technique for glufosinate-ammonium. With this technique, sodium cyanide and acrolein are no longer needed for the production of glufosinate-ammonium, which was proved to be safe, environmentally friendly and clean after small- and pilot-scale production.

 

Transformation of production technique should be taken seriously when developing glufosinate-ammonium in the future.


"Along with the aggravated glyphosate-resistance of weeds and the ban of paraquat due to toxicity, glufosinate-ammonium is bound to become an active substitute of these herbicides that used to occupy important positions in the market.


However, it is still hard for glufosinate-ammonium to compete with glyphosate and paraquat on a production cost and safety in production matter," revealed Zhang Yibing, formerly Senior Engineer of Shanghai Pesticide Research Institute.

 

Zhang Yibin believed that the method used to develop by innovation is a vital concern in the development of glufosinate-ammonium. In the future, enterprises should pay attention to the transformation of the production technique – utilizing biological methods to synthesize glufosinate-ammonium, achieving clean and safe production, developing materials to improve the efficiency of herbicides, reducing the use of per unit area, achieving consumption reduction and weeds control and finally reducing the cost of use.


All pesticides, in addition, this will certainly cause resistance of weeds after being used in a large quantity for a long time, therefore, we need to pay close attention to it, take concrete steps to conduct agrochemical services based on actual conditions and to guide the scientific pesticide application.

 

GuoJingquan, Proffessor of the CropLife Asia and an expert for pesticide development said that the ban on paraquat and the undulating glyphosate market are both related to the products' safety. High-efficacy and low-risk products have become a new development trend in the global pesticide market.


This article comes from Glyphosate China Monthly Report 1605, CCM




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Tag: glufosinate paraquat glyphosate


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