According to China Chemical News, China's ethylene oxide (EO) industry currently faces intensified competition in basic products, insufficient supply of high-end products, and rising raw material costs. To address these challenges, the industry must strengthen technological innovation and industrial synergy, pursuing a path of high-end development, internationalization, and integrated full-industry-chain operations. This consensus emerged from experts at the 2025 National Epoxy Industry Chain High-End Development and Sustainable Growth Forum (Dena Chemical) held last week in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province.
Enhancing the industry's competitiveness requires focusing on four key areas:
First, pursuing integrated industrial chain development to establish a full EO value chain encompassing ethylene → EO → ethylene glycol/ethanolamine → polyethylene glycol (PEG). Extending the chain disperses competitive risks and enhances resilience. Second, enhance the competitiveness of the ethylene supply chain, the primary feedstock, by adopting low-cost ethylene feedstocks and introducing low-carbon light hydrocarbons. Third, reduce fixed costs through plant scale-up. Fourth, elevate R&D capabilities for high-end materials, including accelerating the industrialization of unmet product categories, improving the quality of existing products, and overcoming bottlenecks in the supply of key supporting raw materials.
To mitigate disorderly expansion, upstream and downstream enterprises should strengthen integrated synergy across the “EO-monomer-surfactant-ethanolamine” chain to build cost advantages and boost exports. Simultaneously, leverage EO's cost competitiveness to intensify R&D efforts and extend into high-value downstream products.
Regarding the development of high-value downstream derivatives: - In advanced electronic chemicals, electronic-grade EO serves as a core raw material for advanced process wafer surface cleaning solutions. Enterprises can form deep partnerships with wafer foundries to establish high switching cost barriers. - In new energy materials, battery-grade ethylene carbonate (EC) currently relies heavily on imports from Japan and South Korea, presenting significant opportunities for domestic substitution. In pharmaceutical intermediates and excipients, biodegradable polyethylene glycol (PEG) excipients present broad domestic substitution opportunities. In green surfactants and specialty polyethers, fatty alcohol polyoxyethylene ether (AEO) and alkyl polyglucoside (APG) can replace over 200,000 tons of nonylphenol polyoxyethylene ether. Traditional water-reducing agent manufacturers can enter the green surfactant field using bio-based EO and narrow-distribution catalytic technology.
Additionally, significant market potential exists in segments such as polyetheramines, green surfactants, and electronic-grade ethers.
As an integrated internet platform providing benchmark prices, on November 20, the benchmark price of ethylene oxide on SunSirs was 6,000.00 RMB/ton, a decrease of 2.44% compared with the beginning of the month (6,150.00 RMB/ton).
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