Earthquake triggered nylon manufacturers snap up caprolactam

Sinochem New Online market players said on March 16 that a major earthquake disaster in Japan caused the downstream nylon manufacturers in Taiwan to snap up the spot caprolactam trend because they were concerned that there would be a serious shortage of caprolactam contracts in April in Japan. In the past three days, Chinese Taiwanese buyers purchased at least 10,000 tons of caprolactam from April to May for the price of US$3,570 to US$3,600 (t price, the same, CFR, and Taiwan, China), equivalent to one month in Taiwan. The amount of caprolactam cargo imported from Japan. The goods come from Eastern Europe, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

The three major caprolactam production plants in Japan are currently preparing to reduce the load rate, plan maintenance, and may reduce caprolactam production by 50% in the short term. Japan's four caprolactam producers — Ube Industries, Sumitomo Chemicals, Toray Corporation, and Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC) have caprolactam's total annual production capacity of 525,000 tons. Nylon producers in Taiwan, China, annually contract the amount of caprolactam from Japan to 140,000 to 150,000 tons.

It was also learned that due to strong demand and tight supply, Asia's caprolactam contract price rose in February, and the current Asian spot price of caprolactam was 3530 to 3560 U.S. dollars (CFR, China).