Prediction and analysis of market status and future development trend of China asphalt industry in 2022

一、Industrial chain situation

Asphalt is a black brown complex mixture composed of hydrocarbons of different molecular weight and their non-metallic derivatives, is a kind of high viscosity organic liquid, mostly in liquid or semi-solid petroleum form, the surface is black, soluble in carbon disulfide, carbon tetrachloride.

Asphalt is a kind of waterproof, moisture-proof and anticorrosive organic cementing material. Asphalt can be divided into coal tar asphalt, petroleum asphalt and natural asphalt three kinds.

二、Upstream analysis

Coal is one of the important raw materials for asphalt production. After high temperature distillation, coal tar is produced and then further fractionated. From 2017 to 2022, China’s coal production maintained a steady growth trend, and coal production in 2022 reached 4.45 billion tons, an increase of 930 million tons over 2017.

Crude oil is another important raw material for the production of asphalt. After distillation, the oil extracted from crude oil is fractionated into gasoline, kerosene, diesel oil, and heavy oil. China’s crude oil production is also showing a growth trend, the output in 2022 exceeded 200 million tons, reaching 205 million tons.

三、Midstream analysis

With the development of China’s national economy, roads and municipal infrastructure continue to promote the construction, so the demand for asphalt is growing, in recent years, China’s asphalt production capacity continues to expand, in 2022, China’s asphalt production capacity of 71 million tons, compared with 44 million tons in 2017, an increase of 27 million tons.

Petroleum asphalt is an important category of asphalt, is the residue after distillation of crude oil, the main use is as infrastructure materials, feedstock and fuel.

Petroleum asphalt is one of the indispensable materials for high-grade road construction. With the implementation of the national “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” and “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan”, the national highway density is increasing year by year, and the demand for petroleum asphalt is also growing rapidly. From 2017 to 2022, the output of petroleum asphalt in China increased first and then decreased, with the output of petroleum asphalt in 2017 being 39.8 million tons, increasing to 62.796 million tons in 2020, and decreasing to 38.494 million tons in 2022.

四、Downstream analysis

In recent years, the process of our country’s highway construction is constantly advancing, and the total mileage is also increasing. According to statistics released by the Ministry of Transport, the length of expressways in China will reach 177,000 kilometers by the end of 2022.

Due to the continuous growth of China’s highway traffic flow and the past large-scale construction of roads into the repair period, began to vigorously promote road maintenance. China’s highway maintenance mileage and its proportion in the total highway mileage are increasing year by year, according to the data, in 2022, China’s highway maintenance mileage reached 5,350,100 kilometers, an increase of 98,500 kilometers compared with 2021.

Waterproof roll is another big application field of asphalt, mainly used in building walls, roofing, tunnels, highways, landfill and other places, to resist external rain water, groundwater leakage of a flexible building materials products that can be rolled into a roll, is our country’s waterproof material accounted for the largest subdivision type.

From 2017 to 2021, the output of bitumen and bitumen modified waterproof rolls in China increased steadily, and the output of bitumen and bitumen modified waterproof rolls in 2021 reached 2.96 billion square meters, an increase of 31.4% compared with 2020.