In 2015, polypropylene spunbonded and melt woven fabric manufacturers in the nonwovens industry made full use of the market value of this technology, with a strong development momentum. For example, the Argentine non-woven fabric company Scalter announced that it had acquired a polypropylene spunbonded production line with an annual output of 8000 tons of non-woven fabrics from a Chinese company. It is reported that this production line consists of two spunbonded production lines, two chemical bonding lines, one thermal bonding line, a printing machine and a knitting machine, which are installed in the factory in Buenos Aires, improving the existing operating efficiency of Scalter.
Investing in the hottest equipment at the moment will enable Scalter to "compete with any nonwoven manufacturer in the world" in the future.
Meanwhile, the fourth spunbond production of Toray's Advanced Materials (Toray for short) in Nantong, China, was completed at the end of June 2015. TPN subsidiary in Nantong has become its largest nonwoven factory, producing 77000 tons of non-woven fabrics every year. The company has also set up non-woven fabric production plants in South Korea and Indonesia, and the second production line has been under construction in Indonesia.
It was learned from Toray that these factories were built to meet the growing market demand for disposable baby diapers. It is predicted that due to the improvement of China's income level and lifestyle, the demand for this product is expected to reach 38 billion annually in 2020. Toray plans to meet the demand of the market for high-performance materials used in disposable diapers by investing in the Chinese market, and strengthen the cost competitiveness of operations.
Driving force of non-woven fabric development
Divid Price, partner of Price Hanna Consultants, believes that the primary driving force of global PP spunbond and melt spinning capacity is the growing market demand and modern technology.
"Polypropylene fiber spunbond and melt spinning technology is the most important non-woven fabric production technology in the world," said DividPrice. "This technology is mainly used in the sanitary product market, such as baby and adult diapers, and women's sanitary products, which are the main application fields of non-woven fabrics."
In addition, non-woven fabrics can also be used in the medical market (surgical clothes, disinfection sheets, sterilization bags), construction market (door/window covers, geotextile), industrial or industrial special markets, as well as filtering and home decoration fields.
"In general, from 2014 to 2019, the global demand for non-woven fabrics is expected to grow at an annual rate of about 6%. In addition, the unit weight of non-woven products will continue to decrease in the future." DividPrice said.
The lightweight of non-woven fabrics mainly benefits from technological progress. "Technological progress is an important reason for the growth of spunbonded and melt spun polypropylene non-woven fabrics." Divid Price pointed out that "the technology in this field has continuously and steadily promoted the updating of equipment, so that more lightweight non-woven fabrics can be produced more quickly. Once the performance of the machine is fully played by the technology, more materials can be produced at a lower cost."
In the company's latest report entitled Global Capacity, Supply and Demand and Manufacturing Economy of Spunbonded and Melt Spinned Polypropylene Nonwovens 20092014-2019, DividPrice discussed the main reasons affecting the profits of global producers through more details. These reasons include fluctuations in raw material costs, imbalance between supply and demand, and the application of low-cost technologies.
The growth of demand in this field has led to the growth of the number of equipment used, especially in the excellent manufacturers throughout Asia and other regions of the world. Before 2018, the substantial growth of demand in Asia and South America will also lead to large-scale equipment installation.
Divid Price emphasized that the introduction of new technologies has made the light weight melt spun non-woven fabrics required by the market obtain the best cost-effectiveness. However, considering the capital cost of introducing melt spinning technology, many manufacturers constantly measure the input-output ratio. This problem makes manufacturers have to find partners to reduce the financial burden.
"Producers who are still using old technologies must update their technologies in order to obtain production capacity matching demand and cost competitiveness. This driving force is very strong. In order not to fall behind, many manufacturers have started to update their technologies." Divid Price said.
The Asia Pacific region has broad market prospects
According to the research of a group of analysts from the international consulting agency GrandView Research, the reliable quality of polypropylene non-woven fabric when applied to sanitary products is more prominent, so it is popular. From 2015 to 2022, the Asia Pacific region is expected to achieve the highest growth (5.8%) in the production of polypropylene non-woven fabrics.
In March 2015, Swedish sanitary products manufacturer SCA opened its first personal care and tissue production factory in Maharashtra, India. The company said that "India has a huge population, but the penetration rate of sanitary products is low, and the market in this field will be very promising in the future."
Divid Price also supported this view when talking about the global market outlook. "The market demand in all regions is growing, especially in countries with low penetration rate of disposable nonwoven products, such as China, Africa, South Asia and the Asia Pacific region." He explained, "We estimate that the demand in these regions will increase by 7%~11% every year from 2014 to 2015. Therefore, the growth rate of demand in these regions is expected to exceed that in the United States, Canada and Western Europe, where the population growth is low but the penetration rate of nonwoven products is high."
Although India has a vast market, it also faces some challenges. At the end of 2014, the American Nonwovens Association (INDA) held a basic training course on non-woven fabrics in Mumbai. Experts in the industry pointed out that the application of Indian spunbond technology is concentrated on textiles for packaging materials, and the development is backward. The fierce competition from Chinese manufacturers and more production capacity led to the closure of some spunbond manufacturers in India.
The trainees of the training course believed that India "urgently needs" to update product technology and support from all parties to the market in this field. They also believe that the Indian government should pay attention to customs duties and support the manufacturing of domestic value-added products.
Divid Price said that although China has a high market share in this field, it has also experienced a slight decline recently. "Due to the high market saturation within Chinese cities, the demand for spunbonded and melt spun polypropylene non-woven fabrics for the production of sanitary products has slowed down. However, in rural China, where the popularity of non-woven products is low, the demand is still expected to grow, and the product layout will be wider." Divid Price said.
He also added that in a mature market like Europe, disposable and durable non-woven products still have a market. Although the growth rate of demand is not high, the annual growth of 4% still provides market space.
Thrace Group, a Greek company, captured this market demand and bought a production line of Far é to expand production capacity. It is reported that the production line incorporates some innovative technologies to save energy and reduce raw material consumption, which can enable Thrace Group and its customers to produce unique products that "meet future market demand".
Similarly, Sibur, a Russian natural gas processing and petrochemical company, has added more advanced polypropylene fiber products, which are specially developed for the production of non-woven geotextiles and personal hygiene products, and are characterized by better texture and softness.
In the opinion of Divid Price, with the development of PP spunbond and melt spinning technology, the next challenge is to obtain better surface feel and softness. In addition, with the active participation of equipment manufacturers, more progress will be made in spinning, raw material use and other process areas.
"In general, until 2019, polypropylene spunbonded and melt spun non-woven fabrics still have great demand and growth space." DividPrice said, "Based on the completed and planned production line expansion projects, 335 million tons of production lines will be completed by 2019, and the global capacity will increase to 3.6 billion tons."