The National Mask Production Capacity Has Reached 116 Million Daily Output, And The Market Is Still Tight.

Melted cloth is the key material in the mask. It is called the "heart" of the mask. Apart from blocking the larger dust particles, it can also absorb fine dust, bacteria and virus droplets through the surface electrostatic charge.

For a long time, the melt blown fabric market is not warm, and the capacity of melt blown cloth is not high. China's textile industry association spunbonded nonwovens data show that in 2018, the actual output of China's melt blown nonwovens was 53 thousand and 523 tons, while the actual output of the whole industry spun web nonwoven fabric was 3 million 24 thousand and 727 tons, which means that the output of the melt blown fabric accounted for only 1.8% of the total industry.

With the outbreak of the disease, the daily production of masks has gradually increased, and the price of melted cloth as an important raw material has soared to nearly 20 times before the epidemic. It is understood that the market price of melted cloth has reached 300 thousand yuan per ton. Before the outbreak, the average market price of melt blown fabric was only 18 thousand yuan per ton. Part of the mask manufacturers say that the soaring price of melted cloth is approaching the limit. One cloth is hard to come by, and with the long customization cycle and high price of melted cloth production equipment, some production mask enterprises are embarrassed.

"Now all over the country are covering the production line, and they are all grabbing the raw materials of the mask. The problem is not that the production line is not enough, but the matching of raw materials and mask production lines is not one to one, which aggravates the tension of raw material supply." Jin Lei, deputy director of information development department, Jiangsu Provincial Office of industry and information technology.

In addition to the low capacity of the foundation, there is a more important reason why the supply of melt blown fabric is in a predicament, that is, the production cycle is too long. It is understood that the construction of a melted spun cloth production line to invest nearly 8 million yuan, the delivery date of domestic equipment will be 3 to 4 months, import equipment will be up to 6 to 8 months, plus some special components from abroad, the cycle can even reach 10 months.

In addition, because of the differences in filtration efficiency and electrostatic adsorption capacity of melt blown fabrics produced by different equipment, the stability of product quality is affected. Insiders said that considering the quality of products, larger factories would generally choose imported production lines.

Faced with the sharp increase in demand and the shortage of masks and raw materials, many enterprises have begun to join the "cross border maintenance" market through technological research and development.

In February 24th, Sinopec announced that it invested about 200 million yuan to build 10 melted spray production lines. After the project is completed, it can produce 4 tons of N95 melt blown fabric or 6 tons of medical flat mask melted cloth every day, which can produce 1 million 200 thousand N95 masks or 6 million medical flat respirators.

"I have a mask machine, and I have a layering machine!" In February 26th, after announcing the urgent task of developing the key parts of the emergency masks machine, in February 26th, the first batch of masks were delivered to the eight manufacturers of Chinese ships, the Han Guang heavy industries and other masks production units by ultrasonic welding system.

And there are cross cutting industries such as clothing, car companies, pharmaceutical companies, diaper factories and even new energy companies. For example, the raw material polypropylene of melt blown fabric is also one of the raw materials for producing automobile noise insulation cotton, so automobile manufacturers have plenty of supply. The sterile workshop of pharmaceutical enterprises can meet the production standards of medical devices for respirators. Data show that from January 1, 2020 to February 27th, the number of medical device enterprises nationwide increased by more than 3.

The national team and the folk forces go hand in hand, and now the mask has been blowout. In March 2nd, the national development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced that as of February 29th, national masks, including medical masks, medical masks and medical N95 masks, could reach 110 million Nissan and 116 million daily output, 5.2 times and 12 times that of February 1st, respectively.