Global Taurine Production Closes Close to China, Europe, America and Japan

Business Club September 14th, as long as the domestic production companies do not push each other's prices, the future of Chinese companies will be able to control the pricing power of products, market prices will steadily rise.

Taurine is a kind of sulfur-containing amino acids with various physiological activities and physiological functions. In recent years, the demand for taurine has grown rapidly in the global market. In many cases, the market demand is greater than the actual production, and the market prospect is very promising.

With the discovery of the new health effects of taurine, the international market for taurine has entered a new round of growth in recent years. The annual demand for taurine has been maintained at a growth rate of 10% to 20%. The current global demand for taurine is around 50,000 tons.

Demand has increased steadily in Europe, America and Japan

Due to factors such as labor costs, environmental protection and sources of raw materials, taurine is currently produced mainly in China and Japan, and taurine is no longer produced in Europe and North America. The total production capacity of taurine in the world is about 60,000 to 70,000 tons, and the actual annual output is about 50,000 tons, of which China's production is about 40,000 tons, and Japan is only more than 10,000 tons.

However, the main demand countries for taurine are not China, but in Europe, America and Japan.

The United States and Japan are the major consumers of taurine in the world. Now the annual demand for taurine in the US market has exceeded 10,000 tons, and the annual demand for taurine in the Japanese market has reached about 10,000 tons. The annual demand is 8,000 tons, and the demand in Southeast Asia is 3,500 tons. The annual consumption of taurine in China is about 4,000 tons.

The demand for taurine in the Japanese market has grown rapidly in recent years and has now become the world's second largest taurine consumption market after the United States. Recently, Japan has included taurine in the category of "medicine and food use", which further expands the scope of application of taurine.

Taurine has been used for many years in the field of food additives and traditional medicines, where the amount of food additives used accounts for more than 90% of the total demand. In recent years, Western researchers have also discovered a number of important roles of taurine, thereby greatly increasing the status of taurine as a new nutritional food additive.

In Western countries, dairy products, sports drinks, and energy drinks are all large users of taurine. Infants and young children must add a certain amount of taurine in order to facilitate the healthy growth of children. This is the legislation that the United States and Japan have stipulated a few years ago; there are about 1,000 kinds of health products added to taurine in Europe and the United States; In Europe and the United States, sports drinks have become the second largest beverage category after traditional carbonated drinks, with annual sales of US$5 billion, and taurine has long been one of the most important additives in sports drinks.

The application of taurine in feed additives also has great market development space. Over the years, Western developed countries have made animal bone meal, entrails and other animal feed additives. Since the emergence of mad cow disease in Europe, Japan, the United States, and Canada, they have stopped using such feed additives and switched to synthetic chemicals such as cattle. Sulfonic acid and the like are used as feed additives. When some foreign investors purchase Chinese taurine, they often require Chinese manufacturers to show proof that the provided taurine products are chemical compounds rather than extracted from animals. In the future, the demand for taurine for feed additives in the international market will grow steadily for a long time.

The domestic production order has become normal

The demand for taurine in the Chinese market has been relatively small. As the speed of product development has accelerated, the demand for taurine in the domestic market has also begun to increase substantially, and the growth rate has been rapid. At present, the demand for taurine in the Chinese market is about 4,000 tons, which is mainly used for pharmaceutical products, food additives and feed additives.

In the face of a huge consumer market with a population of more than one billion, in addition to domestic companies actively developing beverages containing taurine, foreign companies have also landed on the Chinese market. Not long ago, the Dazheng Group, a large-scale taurine beverage company in the Japanese market, established a joint venture in China and introduced a series of taurine beverages to the market, claiming to occupy more market share.

Since the beginning of the production of taurine in China, the price of taurine has experienced many ups and downs. When it was high, it reached more than 30 yuan per kilogram, and when it was low, it also had 13 to 14 yuan per kilogram. The market is always repeating the cycle of "price increase - production expansion - market saturation - price decline - production contraction", almost every three or four years is a cycle. According to the analysis, both the existing and the market factors have caused this phenomenon.

Judging from the characteristics of taurine itself, the technology is not complicated, the raw materials are readily available, the equipment is relatively simple, the amount of investment is not large, and the environmental pollution is not serious. Most of the products are exported, and not only are they sold but also the funds are quickly returned. Such products are suitable for SMEs, especially township and village enterprises, which have weak technical strength, weak financial strength, and low human cost. Judging from the market environment, there have been too many domestic raw material medicines and fine chemical companies, and there has been a disorderly market competition. As long as there is demand in the product market, there are orders for exports, and products have profits, it will attract many companies to compete and put into production, resulting in a situation where there is a surge. When there are many manufacturing enterprises and the market can't accommodate them, companies will sell them at a lower price and kill each other. As a result, the price will rise and fall. In recent years, as China's taurine production capacity has gradually been concentrated in several large-scale enterprises, the situation of vicious competition in the market has been greatly improved, and the market price of taurine has also stabilized. At present, the market price of taurine is about 25,000 yuan per ton.

Global discourse power will be concentrated in our country

According to analysis, the market demand for taurine in the future will continue to maintain strong growth momentum. At present, the annual demand for taurine is around 50,000 tons, which is mainly used in food additives and traditional medicine, and the demand for food additives accounts for more than 90% of the total demand. In recent years, the annual demand for taurine in the international market has maintained a growth rate of 15% to 20%, and will continue to maintain strong growth momentum in the future.

Taurine is mainly used as a food additive and nutrient fortifier in developed countries. Every year, the United States and Japan consume more than 10,000 tons in this respect, and the EU market has an annual consumption of 8,000 tons. The per capita consumption of taurine in Japan is the highest, 60g, the United States is 50g, the EU is 45g. Now the annual consumption of taurine in China's market is not large, only 4,000 tons, the per capita annual consumption is only 6g. With the rapid development of China's economy and the continuous improvement of people's living standards, the demand for taurine from food additives and nutritional enhancers will grow rapidly. If the per capita consumption level of taurine in China reaches half of the per capita consumption level in Japan, the annual demand for taurine in China will reach 40,000 tons. Therefore, the potential for the development of the taurine market in China in the future is still great.

It is expected that the market price of taurine will show a steady increase in the future. At present, the influence of global environmentalism is continuously increasing, and the environmental protection pressure on chemical companies is increasing, resulting in a significant increase in the production costs of enterprises, and the global supply of chemical raw materials is also shrinking. Some time ago, a taurine company in Japan also stopped production. It is expected that taurine production will be further concentrated in China in the future.

After years of market integration, the concentration of taurine production in China is continuously increasing, and the increase in market concentration further strengthens the bargaining power of leading enterprises. Due to the rigid demand and limited production capacity, it is expected that taurine will be in a situation where the supply of the market will be less than the market demand in the coming years. As long as the domestic manufacturers do not kill each other and lower prices each other, the future Chinese enterprises will be able to control. With the pricing power of the product, the market price of taurine will also steadily increase.