The king of new materials, with high technical, technological and financial barriers. Carbon fiber has superior performance, high strength, modulus, low density, ultra-high and low temperature resistance. It is mainly used in wind power, aerospace, automobile and other fields. Small tow carbon fiber has excellent performance and high price, and is mostly used in aerospace and other fields; Large tow has high cost performance and is mostly used in civil products such as wind power, rail transit and so on. Carbon fiber production includes “polymerization spinning oxidation carbonization” and other links, in which the raw silk preparation process and technical barriers are high, and the carbonization link has high capital barriers. The performance and cost of carbon fiber are largely determined by the precursor, so the preparation of precursor is the core technical link, and the process barrier is mainly reflected in the spinning process. Carbon fiber is a heavy asset industry with high investment threshold, and the investment amount of 10000 ton line is about 2 billion.
The demand for new energy fields such as wind, light and hydrogen breaks out, and the global demand is expected to be about 250000 tons in 2025. We predict that the global carbon fiber demand will be CAGR + 18.8% from 2021 to 2025, and it is expected to reach 253000 tons in 2025. In 2020, wind power, aerospace, sports and leisure, automobile and carbon carbon composite materials accounted for 28.6% / 15.4% / 14.4% / 11.7% / 4.7% of global demand. In terms of proportion and growth rate, wind power will still play an important role. The core driving force is the development of sea wind, and the large-scale fan has high requirements for performance and weight reduction. It is expected that the demand in the field of wind power will reach 99000 tons in 2025, CAGR + 27%. We predict that the demand for carbon fiber of photovoltaic carbon composites will be 21000 tons in 2025, CAGR + 33%. The demand for carbon fiber from hydrogen storage bottles will also meet explosive growth, due to the rapid development of fuel cell vehicles. We expect the demand in this field to be 33000 tons in 2025, CAGR + 62%.
The industry concentration is high, and domestic leaders have finished catching up. In the future, capacity expansion and cost reduction will lead to surpassing in the civil field. In 20 years, the Cr5 of global / Chinese industry reached 62% / 81% respectively. Among them, American and Japanese enterprises have the first mover advantage in carbon fiber technology and application. In the early stage, Chinese enterprises developed tortuously due to factors such as technology blockade and price competition. After more than 10 years of precipitation and accumulation, it coincides with the “limited overseas export”. While the technology, process and cost are becoming mature, China’s leading enterprises pay close attention to the outbreak of market demand for wind, light and hydrogen, gradually complete domestic substitution in the field of civil products, and turn losses into profits in the whole industry. We believe that under the leading production expansion of domestic leaders, the inflection point of industrial capacity expansion has reached and is expected to accelerate; We estimate that the global carbon fiber effective capacity in 21 / 22 will be 121000 / 141000 tons, yoy + 3% / 17%. In the past few years, China’s carbon fiber price has been rising year by year due to the impact of supply and demand and the rise of raw material costs. We expect to maintain good toughness in 22 years. In the medium and long term, the penetration rate of civil carbon fiber increases or depends on changing “price” for “demand”, and the price center may move down.
Cost reduction of civil products is the core, and scale and technology are the key. The cost of civil carbon fiber is the key factor for the expansion of downstream applications and the improvement of penetration. The competitiveness of enterprises mainly focuses on the cost and technology. From the perspective of cost reduction, one is to reduce ton depreciation and ton energy consumption by giving play to the scale effect. The manufacturing cost accounts for 50% – 80% of the carbon fiber cost (including depreciation and electricity account for 50% – 70% of the manufacturing cost), which has a scale effect. Second, reduce the cost by improving technology. In terms of raw material consumption, there is still room for decline in the industry’s acrylonitrile ton consumption. In terms of process, efficiency can be improved by optimizing spinning, oxidation and carbonization processes.
Investment suggestion: driven by new energy fields such as wind / light / hydrogen and the improvement of carbon fiber penetration, the demand for carbon fiber is expected to continue to grow rapidly. Chinese enterprises are leading the new production capacity, the expansion of industrial capacity is expected to accelerate, the growth of production and sales volume is expected to bring a rapid decline in costs, and the localization rate is expected to accelerate. We suggest to focus on the carbon fiber leader Zhongfu Shenying (unlisted), Weihai Guangwei Composites Co.Ltd(300699) , precursor leader Jilin Carbon Valley, Jilin Chemical Fibre Co.Ltd(000420) , Sinofibers Technology Co.Ltd(300777) , Hengshen Co., Ltd.; carbon fiber equipment manufacturer Zhejiang Jinggong Science & Technology Co.Ltd(002006) ; downstream composite manufacturer Sinoma Science & Technology Co.Ltd(002080) , Kbc Corporation Ltd(688598) , Beijing Tianyishangjia New Material Corp.Ltd(688033) , Hongfa new material, etc.
Risk tips: technological change; The demand is less than expected; Excessive production capacity; Prices fell sharply; The unit price of raw materials and energy rose sharply; Market space measurement deviation risk; There is a risk that the use information lags behind or is not updated in time.
