Paracetamol prices rose sharply in the first half of 2021, and the export volume continued to decrease
Paracetamol raw material prices continued to grow in 2021; the average export price in January was 5.82 USD/KG, and in June the average export price reached 8.53 USD/KG, an increase of 46.73% in six months. From the perspective of total exports, the first half of this year, the export volume of about 16921 tons, the export value of 128 million U.S. dollars, the number of 35.81% year-on-year reduction, the average price increased by 63.77%. This shows that due to the significant increase in prices, making the export volume also significantly reduced, tracing its cause is mainly due to the reduction in the supply of para-aminophenol.
There are fewer domestic manufacturers of para-aminophenol, currently only Taixing City Yangzi Medical Chemical and Liaoning Shising. From India's imports of para-aminophenol, since May 2021, in addition to China, also began to import para-aminophenol from Cambodia, as a way to meet the demand for downstream product production.
In the past five years, paracetamol raw material exports peaked in 2020 at more than 45,000 tons, while this year there was a precipitous decline, with less than 17,000 tons in the first half of the year. It is expected to be on par with the demand after the price increase in 2018. In addition, the export volume of paracetamol granules in China has been around 20,000 tons in calendar years, while 7,800 tons in the first half of this year. The price of paracetamol granules also rose accordingly, with the average price in June at US$10.3/KG. China's paracetamol raw material exports accounted for about 70%, and domestic usage was about 30%, a ratio that basically did not change much.
