SunSirs: Why Has the Price of Bromine Continued to Soar, Rising 60% in a Month?

Recently, the price of bromine has surged significantly. On March 31, SunSirs’ benchmark price for bromine stood at RMB 66,100.00 per ton, a 60.05% increase compared to early March (RMB41,300.00 per ton).

In some regions, spot prices for bromine have even surged to RMB72,000, setting a new historical high. This surge is the result of multiple factors converging and reinforcing each other, including tightening domestic supply, disruptions in international supply, a significant rise in production costs, and strong support from downstream demand.

Continuing Contraction of Domestic Production Capacity

From the domestic supply side, resource depletion and environmental production restrictions have triggered a continuous contraction in bromine production capacity.

Shandong Province, as the primary domestic production area for bromine, accounts for over 80% of the country’s capacity. However, the core issue in the domestic bromine supply chain has long shifted from insufficient capacity to resource scarcity, which has become the underlying logic driving the price increase.

Laizhou Bay in Shandong, the country’s main source of bromine brine resources, has seen a continuous decline in bromine content within the brine. This has increased extraction difficulties for enterprises and led to a significant drop in output rates. Domestic bromine production has plummeted from 135,500 metric tons in 2014 to 63,500 metric tons in 2025, with domestic self-sufficiency continuing to weaken.

In addition to resource constraints, environmental policies and seasonal production controls have further exacerbated the tight supply situation for domestic bromine. In recent years, environmental regulations across the country have continued to tighten; in January, domestic bromine production fell by 22% year-on-year and 44% month-on-month. Although enterprises have gradually resumed production following the end of spring production restrictions, brine bromine content has not returned to normal levels, and capacity release has been slow. Coupled with enterprises operating with chronically low inventory levels, market supply is extremely scarce. The industry as a whole is in a “zero inventory” state, making it fundamentally impossible to meet downstream market demand.

Import Channels Severely Disrupted

From the perspective of international supply, geopolitical conflicts and logistical bottlenecks have severely disrupted bromine import channels.

China’s bromine market is highly dependent on foreign sources, which is the key reason why prices are so heavily influenced by international developments. Data shows that by 2025, China’s reliance on bromine imports had risen to 66%, with imports concentrated in Israel and Jordan.

Since early 2026, the escalating geopolitical conflict in the Middle East has become the biggest “black swan” event affecting the global bromine supply. As the world’s largest bromine producer, Israel has seen production facilities at ICL’s Dead Sea Sodom plant forced to cut output or shut down, directly disrupting the global supply rhythm. Meanwhile, flooding in southern Jordan has damaged infrastructure at bromine production bases, halting operations. With supply disruptions occurring simultaneously in these two core import sources, China’s bromine import channels have effectively “dried up.”

Logistical bottlenecks have further exacerbated the supply gap. Due to the situation in the Red Sea and shipping restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz, bromine export vessels from Israel, Jordan, and other regions have been forced to reroute via the Cape of Good Hope, significantly extending transit times and driving up logistics costs. Market concerns over bromine shortages continue to intensify. Traders are hoarding inventory and holding back sales, while downstream enterprises are engaging in panic buying, further driving up market prices and creating a vicious cycle where “the higher the price, the more people rush to buy; the more people rush to buy, the higher the price rises.”

Production Costs Continue to Rise

From a cost perspective, soaring raw material prices have caused bromine production costs to rise continuously.

The core raw materials for bromine production include underground brine, liquid chlorine, sulfur, and coal. Among these, sulfur is a critical auxiliary material in the production process, and fluctuations in sulfur prices directly impact bromine production costs.

Since the second half of 2024, international crude oil prices have continued to rise, surpassing $106 per barrel, driving a collective increase in raw material prices across the petrochemical industry chain. The sulfur market has seen prices soar due to multiple factors, including demand from phosphate fertilizer production and the emerging new energy sector. At the same time, prices for production inputs such as liquid chlorine and coal have also risen in tandem. With energy costs and environmental compliance expenses continuing to climb, bromine producers face significantly increased cost pressures. They have no choice but to pass these costs on by raising ex-factory prices, further driving up market prices.

Strong Support from Downstream Essential Demand

From the demand side, robust downstream demand remains strong, with expansion in emerging sectors further underpinning demand.

Bromine has an extremely wide range of downstream applications, spanning flame retardants, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, dyes, refrigerants, and new energy, among others. The flame retardant sector accounts for 36% of total domestic bromine consumption, making it the largest consumer segment. As this sector is difficult to replace quickly, it provides solid demand support for rising bromine prices.

In traditional sectors, as global fire safety standards continue to rise, bromine-based flame retardants—thanks to their superior flame-retardant properties—are seeing steady and sustained growth in demand across industries such as building materials, textiles, and electronics.

Emerging sectors have become a new driver of demand for bromine. With the rapid development of the new energy vehicle, energy storage, and electronic information industries, products such as power batteries have extremely high fire safety requirements, leading to the continuous expansion of application scenarios for brominated flame retardants. At the same time, demand for bromine in high-end sectors such as pharmaceutical intermediates and pesticide formulations has maintained steady growth, while incremental demand from the new energy storage materials sector is gradually emerging, further exacerbating the supply-demand imbalance for bromine.

High Prices Likely to Persist

Regarding the future trend of the bromine market, industry analysts believe that in the short term, key factors such as geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East, the pace of production resumption in Jordan, and domestic brine output have yet to show significant improvement. The pattern of import shortages and insufficient domestic supply is unlikely to be quickly reversed, and market inventories remain at historically low levels, so the trend of high bromine prices is expected to continue. Galaxy Securities notes that if tensions in the Middle East persist and bromine exports from Israel and Jordan fail to return to normal, the central price level for bromine is expected to rise further.

In the long term, as domestic environmental policies continue to tighten and brine resources steadily decline, the contraction of domestic bromine production capacity will become a long-term trend. Reliance on imports may further increase, and the international supply landscape and geopolitical factors will continue to dominate bromine price trends. At the same time, growing demand from downstream sectors such as new energy and high-end manufacturing will continue to support market demand for bromine, and a tight supply-demand balance is likely to persist for the long term.

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