At present, industrial gathering is a relatively common phenomenon in the global glass fiber industry. From the geographical distribution of production capacity, the production base of glass fiber is gradually shifting to developing countries with lower labor costs. Today, glass fiber production capacity is mainly concentrated in Asia, America and Europe.
China started later than Europe in the glass fiber industry. In China, glass fiber was first used for military affairs, and after decades of development, world-renowned achievements have been made in this industry. China has developed a direct melting route for the fiber manufacturing process better than the one that involves a remelting process. In addition, China has become the world's largest fiberglass producer.
The biggest fiberglass manufacturer
As a world leader in the world fiberglass industry, China Jushi Group is one of the world's largest specialized manufacturers of glass fibers. Early in 2016, the large glass fiber group had increased its glass fiber production capacity up to 1.6 million tons. In addition, Jushi provides glass fiber with more than 20 categories and nearly 500 specifications, having the most completed varieties and specifications of reinforced glass fiber in mainland China. It has three production bases in China's Tongxiang, Zhejiang, Jiujiang, Jiangxi, Chengdu, Sichuan, and two overseas production bases in Egypt and the United States.
Advantages of Chinese glass fiber manufacturing
Fiberglass manufacturing is blossoming everywhere in China. Jushi has now exceeded OC in the production capacity, ranking first in the world. To increase its profitability, Jushi continuously innovates its technology. At present, it's easy to find the widening gap between Chinese and overseas enterprises and the accelerating industry differentiation. The reason lies in that, compared with overseas enterprises, Chinese fiberglass enterprises have great advantages, mainly in the following aspects.
Sufficient raw materials
The raw materials for fiberglass production mainly include some ore materials such as chlorite, quartz sand, limestone, dolomite, boron calcium stone and boromagnesite, and some chemical materials such as boric acid, soda ash and wetting agent. Among these materials. chlorite is the primary one, accounting for more than 50% of the cost of all raw materials. As one of the countries that are richest in chlorite reserve, China has a large amout of chlorite, accounting for about 30% of the global chlorite reserves. What's more, the quartz sand reserve in China amounts to 1.35 billion tons. With the large supply of raw materials, dramatic fluctuation in price can be avoided, which maintains the cost in materials for Chinese enterprises.
Low cost
The fiberglass industry is featured by labor intensity. China still has its place as a lower labor cost manufacturing nation. With the technological upgrading in 2013 to 2016, manufacturing costs in the corresponding years (or lagged to the next year) decreased significantly. Furthermore, automated production, formula improvements, cost savings continued to help reduce the cost.
Huge demand
In Europe and America, Automobiles, pipelines, railroads and wind power in developed countries have grown into a certain scale with stable needs after decades of development. Compared to these developed countries, China is at the stage of rapid development and has a huge demand for glass fiber. That is why glass fiber enterprises have no intention to expand their business outside China and why a further gathering of production capacity of fiberglass is happening in China. To date, China has been a monopoly in the fiberglass industry without any meaningful competition, which is unlikely to change in a long time.
Low price of natural gas
During the production of fiberglass, a large amount of natural gas, electricity and steam are consumed to melt ore raw materials with high melting points. Nearly 30% of the total cost is spent on the melting process, hence, fluctuations in the price of energy sources will have a certain impact on fiberglass production costs. In recent years, the price of natural gas in China keeps decreasing, making it possible to cut costs. The sufficient supply of upstream resources helps prevent dramatic changes in the cost of glass fiber production.
In 2019, fiberglass production in mainland China reached 5.27 million tons, accounting for more than half of the total global production. China's glass fiber industry is expanding at a fast pace globally, establishing China's leading position in the world's fiberglass market.
The glass fiber industry has technical barriers, capital barriers, brand barriers and policy barriers. The characteristics of the fiberglass industry itself form a high barrier to entry. On the basis of the technical and financial barriers in the glass fiber industry itself, China has also raised the threshold of entry in policy, which indirectly enhances the strength of big companies in the fiberglass industry. With the high threshold, it will not only be more difficult for enterprises to enter this market but also raised the risk that less competitive enterprises will be gradually squeezed out of the market.
4 Well-known fiberglass Manufacturing areas
Shandong Province
There are 128 kinds of mineral resources discovered in Shandong province, accounting for more than 70% of the types of minerals that have been discovered in China.
Proved reserves of 74 kinds among the 128 kinds of mineral resources have been measured. Among the 74, 30 kinds have the reserve ranking among the top ten in China's mineral resources. Among the top ones are gold (rock gold), natural sulfur (accounting for more than 90% of the total natural sulfur reserve) and gypsum (accounting for more than 79% of the total gypsum reserve), etc. Among the top two are petroleum, diamond (40% of the total diamond reserve), magnesite, cobalt, hafnium, granite, etc. In the third place are potash, graphite, talc, bentonite, limestone, etc. Apart from the above minerals, coal, natural gas, iron, barite, diatomite, bauxite, light rare earths, oil shale, quartz sand, phosphorus, gallium, etc.. are among the top ten. The abundance of resources and clean energy sources is of great help for glass fiber manufacturing and production, greatly reducing the cost.
Here are the most famous manufacturers (in no particular order):
Sinoma Pangbeijie Jinjing Glass Fiber Co., Ltd
Shandong Glass Group
Weifang Henglian Glass Paper Co., Ltd
Taishan Glass Fiber Co., Ltd
Jiangsu and Zhejiang
Jiangsu and Zhejiang are renowned for economic prosperity and advanced technology.
Technology plays an important role in the complex process that turns glass fiber into structural components. With advanced technology and strong production capacity, the fiberglass industry in Jiangsu and Zhejiang grows pretty well and continues to extend. Now the number of glass fiber enterprises here has surpassed a hundred and these enterprises have formed a complete industry chain including glass fiber yarn, glass fiber cloth, automotive lightweight products, thermal insulation components, fiber-reinforced plastics, sports protective gear and environmental protection equipment.
Here are the most famous manufacturers (in no particular order):
Sichuan Province
Sichuan Fiberglass is the first to use the direct melting route to produce basalt fiber in China. Its experimental project of basalt fiber production, which was prepared for several decades, is located at Chengnan Industrial Park, Luojiang Economic and Technological Development Zone, Sichuan. The experimental project has been going well and its basalt fiber products with good quality and mechanical properties have been recognized by the Sichuan Fiber Inspection Bureau and the National Basalt Fiber Engineering Center of Southeast University. In addition, the products have been approved for mass production.
Here are the most famous manufacturers (in no particular order):
Chongqing international composite materials co., LTD
Sichuan Weibo New Materials Group Co., LTD
Sichuan Fiberglass
In addition to these areas mentioned above, Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen are also have very strong strength in glass fiber manufacturing.
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