The import demand for m-xylene is still high, and there will be more room for localization in the future.

Meta-xylene (MX), also known as 1,3-xylene, is an important organic chemical raw material with a wide range of applications. It is used in medicine, resins, dyes, pesticides and other fields, and has high market demand. In industry, high-purity m-xylene is usually produced from mixed C8 aromatics containing ethylbenzene, p-xylene, m-xylene, and o-xylene. In industry, adsorption separation method is mainly used to produce high-purity m-xylene. The products produced by this process have high purity, high yield, and have the advantages of no corrosion to equipment and no environmental pollution. It is currently the mainstream m-xylene production process.

Overseas developed countries, represented by the United States, have been early in the field of m-xylene. Currently, their production technology is leading, their products are of good quality, and they can meet the application needs of different downstream fields. According to the “Xylene Industry Market Status and Investment Prospects Forecast Report in 2022” released by the Industrial Research Center, my country’s m-xylene production There are few companies and the output cannot meet the market demand. Therefore, my country’s meta-xylene imports have fluctuated in the past five years, from 11,000 tons in 2017 to 55,000 tons in 2021. As the import volume increases, the amount of my country’s m-xylene imports also increases, from US$10 million in 2017 to US$60 million in 2021.

From the perspective of import regions, my country’s m-xylene mainly comes from Asia. Taiwan, China accounts for a relatively high proportion, reaching about 42%, followed by South Korea, accounting for 32%, and Japan accounts for 26%. In terms of import demand, my country’s m-xylene importing provinces are mainly concentrated in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, accounting for 59% and 40% respectively. Meta-xylene has a wide range of downstream applications. Benefiting from the promotion of downstream industries, the market demand for m-xylene has shown a growth trend in recent years, attracting many companies to deploy in this field. As of 2022, the number of m-xylene-related companies in my country will reach more than 2,300.

In terms of market competition, the global mesoxylene production companies mainly include Mitsubishi Chemical, AgipPetroli SPA, F1int Hills Resources L.P, BP, etc. The current m-xylene production capacity in the United States is 180kt/a, and the m-xylene production capacity in Western Europe is 80kt/a. , Japan’s m-xylene production capacity is 145kt/a. my country’s m-xylene industry started late. There are currently many production companies, but most of them are small in scale. Representative production companies include Shanghai Xinlian, Suzhou Yongtai, Baling Petrochemical, Yanshan Petrochemical, Donglian Chemical, and Jiangsu Zhongxin. Among them, Jiangsu Zhongxin and Yanshan Petrochemical have relatively high production capacity, with their total production capacity reaching 180,000 tons/year.

Industrial analysts said that m-xylene, as an important organic chemical raw material, can be used in many fields such as medicine, chemicals, dyes, etc. It has been applied in many fields and is currently mainly used to produce IPA overseas. Benefiting from the promotion of terminal industries, the application demand for m-xylene continues to rise, and the industry development prospects are good. In terms of production, domestic m-xylene production companies have continued to grow in recent years, but most of them have small production scales. Only a few companies have achieved large-scale production and have a relatively high share of the domestic market.