Masks Become Just Needed: Core Melted Cloth Is Still In Short Supply, And The Industry Is Worried About Overcapacity.

Masks create acceleration.

According to the data of business registration data, from January 1, 2020 to February 7th, the business scope of more than 3000 enterprises has added "mask, protective clothing, disinfectant, thermometer, medical device" and other businesses.

The approved pharmaceutical manufacturers are mainly concentrated in central and eastern China. The top five enterprises with the largest number of enterprises are Henan, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Hubei and Guangdong. Specific enterprises include Sinopec, Foxconn, SAIC GM Wuling, BYD, Chang Ying precision, OPPO and vivo and other industry giants.

However, due to the supply of melt blown fabrics, masks manufacturers everywhere enter the raw material shortage period.

In the afternoon of February 27th, in twenty-first Century, the economic report reporters called more than 100 masks, and finally reached 8, but all of them said the production was seriously affected by the shortage of meltblown fabric.

Of the 8 enterprises, two factories (from Xinjiang and Hubei) were directly supervised by government officials. Although masks manufacturers operate at maximum capacity every day, they are still in short supply, and even the government's needs are not satisfied.

Although Sinopec had previously issued news of raw materials produced by melt spraying cloth, manufacturers did not feel any improvement in the situation. The head of a factory in Yunnan told the twenty-first Century economic report that there was no melted cloth factory in Yunnan. The materials were shipped from Guangdong and Hubei, and now the epidemic is breaking out. Hubei's road is broken. Therefore, melt blown fabric has been in short supply. And the head of a mask factory in Hunan, which has more than ten thousand production capacity, says that every day it takes a lot of manpower and material resources to transport raw materials.

Melt blown fabric is the core material of respirator. Medical masks and N95 masks are hamburger structures made of spunbonded layer (Spunbond) - melt blown layer (Meltbond) - spunbond layer (Spunbond), and the spunbond layer and melted shotcrete layer are made of polypropylene PP material.

In February 2nd, at the news conference held by the Ministry of industry and information, Wang Wei, director of the Ministry of materials and materials of the Ministry of industry and commerce, said that in 2019, the high melting polypropylene fiber used in China was about 900 thousand tons, and one ton could produce 90-100 disposable surgical masks (corresponding annual output of 8100-9000 million / year, daily output of 22.1-25.6 million / day), and 20-25 N95 medical masks. The output is 1800-2250 million / year and the daily output is 5-6 billion / day. China's main production enterprises include Sinopec's Zhenhai Refining and chemical industry, Shanghai SECCO, Jingmen petrochemical, Hainan refining and chemical, Maoming petrochemical, Shijiazhuang refinery and Guangzhou petrochemical. The difficulty of raw materials is mainly in transportation.

On the other hand, due to the low technical barriers of the mask industry chain and the influx of large quantities of capacity in a short time, the industry is already worried about overcapacity.

In February 5th, at the news conference of the national health and Health Committee, Hao Fuqing, deputy director of the social development department of the national development and Reform Commission, said, "for some enterprises concerned about the problem of overcapacity in the future, we emphasize once again that the government will collect and store the surplus output after the epidemic, so long as the standards are met, the enterprises can organize their production at full strength."

"Factory mask production has been fully restored, and the masks are uniformly allocated by the government. However, due to the shortage of raw materials, the purchase price of raw materials has increased by several times. In order to increase the production of masks, the factory purchased a batch of new equipment, and the price of equipment increased several times before the epidemic. On the one hand, the purchase of equipment was in response to the government's request, and on the one hand, it was also the responsibility of the enterprise. But after the outbreak, the demand for masks is bound to plummet and the rate of new equipment will be idle, which has also brought a lot of uncertainty to the enterprises. A mask manufacturer in Yunnan said. At the same time, some high-end masks manufacturers also expressed similar views, and said that due to worry about excess, it has slowed down the expansion of capacity.

"I hope that after the outbreak of the epidemic, the government can give more support to the small and medium-sized enterprises in the province, for example, the medical institutions in this province can mostly use the health care products produced by the manufacturers in the province." The above Yunnan mask factory official said.