China American Etano Imports To Increase By 2025 In Impulse To Reduce Costs

By themselves Liu and Florence so

Singapore (Reuters) – Despite a growing commercial war between Washington and Beijing, China’s imports from the United States will increase this year as the great petrochemical producers fighting the profits reduced to the cheapest raw material that It flows from the rise of the schist gases of the United States.

Companies that include satellite chemicals, China Sanjiang Fine Chemical and Wanhua Chemical Group are investing more than $ 16 billion to build cookies, update plants, expand storage and build very large ETA carriers to send liquefied gas.

The export capacity of the United States and the lack of oil tankers are the two factors that stop the growth of ethane trade between the two largest economies in the world. Almost all of China’s ethane imports come from the US.

The forecasts of three analysts for China’s imports in 2025 range between 6.3 million and 8.2 million metric tons, which they estimate would be equivalent to an increase of between 9% and 34%. There are no official data available publicly in ETAN imports.

To meet the growing export demand, energy transfer partners of the US pipe network and business products are expanding the capacity in their terminals.

“The bottleneck is US exports at this time,” said Armaan Ashraf, head of natural gas fluids at FGE consulting.

China buys almost half of the US’s exports from the US. Day (11.2 million tons) in 2025, he said in an October report. China is expected to take most of that increase, an EIA analyst said.

In competition with China, Thailand plans to buy more American ethane to reduce its commercial deficit with the United States, while Siam Cement Group is configuring its new long son Cracker in Vietnam to use the cheapest raw material. Taiwan Petrachemical Formosa, the largest Naftha importer in the region, is also studying the importation of American ethane for its cookies, said its spokesman Ky Lin to Reuters.

The growing demand and the restricted export capacity will result in a strict market of ethane since 2026, said Wang Yan, analyst at the ICIS basic intelligence firm.

New cookies and ships

Between 2024 and 2026, Chinese companies plan to add at least 7.7 million tons per year (TPY) of capacity to process ethane and other gas liquids, show the company’s presentations, since they seek to take advantage of the cheapest raw material.

They need to make the change to improve their returns. The cookies in China process ethane can reap $ 300- $ 500 per ton of ethylene produced, overcoming the profit margins in the NAFTA processing plants, said Cheryl Liu, consultation an energy consultation analyst aspects.

Sanjiang Chemical said in his financial report of the first half of 2024 that the implementation of his mixed feeding cookie reduced his costs in a fifth and turned his production of ethylene oxide/ethylene glycol of losses to obtain profits.

Together with the plant updates, a new shipping capacity is required. For every million tons per year in capacity for cracking, at least six vlec dedicated to send the raw material, Ashraf said.

A VEC costs $ 160 million- $ 170 million and takes three years to build, Japan Lines said executives. The operator has leased his first two VEC that were completed this year to the United Kingdom group of private property to send us Estano to China.

Wanhua Chemical, which has three VEC, will add another two to three oil tankers by the end of the year, said that a source familiar with the matter that declined to be named since it is not authorized to talk to the media.

“The main restriction is shipping,” he said, since Chinese shipyards are fully reserved in the coming years.

He estimated that there are 29 VEC in service and expects China’s demand to track new ships.

“There is a lot ” Iino Kaiun Kaisha’s GNL team said in an email response to Reuters.

However, some analysts and the Enterprise Jim Teague CEO played the probability that ethan industry.

“The whole segment is not working very well. There are always other sectors in which they can take advantage of when it comes to the commercial war,” said Ashraf de FGE.

China reduced its import rate for ethane in 2025 to 1% of 2% in 2024.

Teague said that Chinese propane and ethane users depend on imports. “Then, from a NGL perspective, I am not worried,” analysts told analysts on February 4, referring to natural gas fluids.

Touring for the increase, Enterprise plans to open a terminal in Orange County, Texas, in the second half of this year to export 120,000 BPD of Ethane and aims to expand it in 2026.

Energy Transfer said he would add 250,000 BPD of export capacity for natural gas fluids in Nederland, Texas, from the third quarter of 2025.

His official executive co -chapter, Marshall McCrea, said in a profit call in November: “The international demand for ethane and LPG continues to grow by clouds … especially in China.”

($ 1 = 7,2751 Yuan Renminbi Chino)

(Siyi Liu report, Florence Tan and Gabrielle NG in Singapore and Arathy Somasekhar in Houston; additional reports from Georgina McCartney in Houston; edition of Tony Munroe and Sonali Paul)

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