my country is a major producer of dissolving pulp, but market demand still relies on imports.
Dissolving pulp is a special chemical pulp composed of high-purity, high-quality cellulose. It is an intermediate product that is widely used. Dissolving pulp can be divided into cotton pulp, wood pulp and bamboo pulp according to the raw materials used. Wood is the earliest plant fiber material used in the production of dissolving pulp. The vast majority of pulp in the world is made of wood. The production of cotton raw material dissolving pulp is mainly cotton short fiber, and the dissolving pulp made from cotton short fiber is called cotton pulp. Countries rich in forest resources such as North America and Northern Europe mostly use wood to produce pulp. my country has insufficient forest resources and abundant non-wood resources. Both bamboo residue and sugarcane bagasse can produce dissolving pulp of non-wood fiber. Therefore, my country is the country with the largest bamboo pulp production in the world.
There are many kinds of downstream products of dissolving pulp, which can be made into different industrial products through different processes. There are two core technologies for dissolving pulp production, namely intermittent cooking and bleaching and continuous cooking and bleaching. Continuous digesters produce dissolving slurry at lower cost and faster than batch digesters. The scale of my country’s dissolving pulp production is generally small, and the market output is far lower than the market demand. In 2020, the national dissolving pulp production was 1.6 million tons.
According to the “In-depth Market Research and Investment Strategy Suggestions Report on Dissolving Pulp Industry 2021-2025” released by the Industrial Research Center, my country is As the world’s largest consumer of dissolving pulp, total demand is far greater than domestic production, so more than 60% of demand comes from imports. In the past five years, my country’s apparent demand for dissolving pulp has seen overall fluctuating growth, reaching 4.4 million tons by 2020. In the future, as my country’s dissolving pulp production capacity gradually increases, the proportion of domestic production demand will gradually increase.
From the perspective of China’s dissolving pulp production capacity pattern, China’s dissolving pulp production capacity in 2020 will be 2.58 million tons, of which the largest proportion is Asia Pacific Xinbo (Shandong) Pulp and Paper Co., Ltd., accounting for about 45% of the production capacity, followed by Shandong Sun Paper Co., Ltd. and Hunan Juntai Pulp and Paper Co., Ltd., with pulp dissolving capacities of 520,000 tons and 340,000 tons respectively. In terms of the distribution of global pulp production capacity, China ranks first. In 2020, my country’s pulp production capacity ranked first in the world with a proportion of 27%. However, China is still in short supply of dissolving pulp and relies heavily on imports.
Industry analysts said that dissolving pulp is mainly used for papermaking. my country has a large population and a high consumption of paper, so it is good for dissolving pulp. Pulp industry development. Controlled by forest resources and policies, my country’s wood pulp resources are scarce and it mainly relies on imports. Although my country is the world’s largest bamboo pulp producer, current papermaking is still dominated by wood pulp, and bamboo pulp market influence is small. Generally speaking, my country’s dissolving pulp output is low and cannot meet market demand. It relies heavily on imports, which limits the development of downstream industries. In order to improve the domestic dissolving pulp market structure, companies will need to develop more types of dissolving pulp in the future to replace wood pulp.