Since entering the year 2008, Japan Acrylic staple fiber production continued to show downward trend. In the first half of acrylic materials acrylonitrile (AN) led to the rapid rise of acrylic staple fiber is far higher than the market price of polyester staple fiber, worldwide demand for acrylic staple fiber market has dropped significantly. For the production of chemical fiber enterprises, a loss adjusting business has become urgent, short acrylic fiber manufacturers had to reduce the scale of production.

2008 annual production of acrylic fibers business in the first half of the performance shows that, in addition to the company Toray, the other Japanese companies are showing sales and profits fell. The industry’s largest Mitsubishi Rayon’s “Neil stretched” brand sales of 111 billion yen the same period last year decreased by almost half of the losses are continuing. From the operating rate, Mitsubishi Rayon in Japan’s largest Otake factory operating rate was only 50% of Ningbo in China’s Ningbo Li Yang’s factory operating rate is down to about 30%. Toyobo’s acrylic staple fiber business, despite the beginning of this year from the operating rate will be reduced to 40%, but have not yet turned around. The company that for some time to come acrylic staple fiber market difficult to pick up, it was decided to further reduce the scale of production and increase the ratio of carbon fiber business. East Bangtekesi textile companies to further expand the amount of business losses, in the first half of this year has been abandoned for 50% of acrylic staple fiber production equipment, facilities planned for the remainder of the production of carbon fiber.

Although the need for the production of acrylic fiber in the early large-scale investment, but because the product can be obtained by changing the formula unique properties, it has been used as a difference of fiber. However, because of the excessive prices of raw materials, acrylic staple fiber market prices have been much higher than the polyester. Unable to remove the impact of raw material price increases, many users are beginning to use alternative acrylic polyester staple fiber, acrylic staple fiber market, leading to a vicious circle. Mitsubishi Rayon forecast 2007 worldwide sales of acrylic staple fiber to 2,500,000 tons, the year 2008 may be reduced to 2,000,000 tons below.

Against this background, the major Japanese chemical fiber manufacturers have to adjust the production of acrylic fibers business. The main adjustment in two ways: First, reduce equipment investment, lower operating rate; The second is to increase the production of carbon fiber. As for how to deal with the production equipment, the business practices of different businesses, some have abandoned some of the equipment, but some companies (such as Toyobo) that “if we can have a concentration of production equipment for the production of higher value-added fabric, complete Possible to reverse the situation. “