Adipic Acid Market Outlook: Cost Transmission and Industry Changes Amid Geopolitical Rivalry

2026-03-20 09:30

In the first quarter of 2026, the global adipic acid market experienced a sharp roller-coaster trend. Hit by raw material cost shocks triggered by international geopolitical conflicts, market prices hit a three-year high within just a few days, then fell rapidly and entered a stalemate phase of supply-demand game. This fluctuation not only reveals the sensitivity of cost transmission in the adipic acid industrial chain but also reflects a profound shift in the industry from single-product competition to the integration of the entire industrial chain.

I. Market Review: Surge, Pullback and Stalemate

Since March, the adipic acid market has shown a distinct inverted V-shaped reversal.
At the beginning of the month, driven by a surge in international crude oil prices, the market entered a sharp rally. By early March, the negotiated price range of adipic acid in East China once soared to 11,600–12,000 yuan per tonne, with a weekly increase of over 43%, marking a three-year price peak. During this period, the market even saw an extreme single-day gain of more than 22%.
However, the upward momentum failed to sustain. As crude oil prices corrected, market wait-and-see sentiment rose rapidly, followed by a price pullback from the highs. By mid-March, the market price had dropped to around 10,600 yuan per tonne, and then entered a phase of narrow softening and supply-demand stalemate. As of late March, amid falling raw material prices and insufficient demand follow-up, the market maintained an overall weak consolidation pattern.

II. Core Driver: Cost Shock Ignited by Geopolitics

The core driver of this round of market volatility stems from drastic changes on the cost side caused by international geopolitical conflicts.
Escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East served as the trigger, pushing international crude oil prices to briefly break through 120 US dollars per barrel intraday. The surge in oil prices quickly transmitted downstream, driving up prices of pure benzene and cyclohexanone—the two core raw materials for adipic acid. Data shows that pure benzene prices once rose by more than 78% in the short term, and cyclohexanone by over 36%. Under strong cost pressure, adipic acid producers were forced to raise ex-factory quotations consecutively to pass on the burden.
Meanwhile, supply tightened temporarily. Some production units were shut down for maintenance or operated at reduced loads during this period, leading to a decline in industry operating rates and a month-on-month drop in weekly output, providing additional support for price increases.

III. Current Industry Status: In-depth Game Between Costs and Demand

Despite heavy cost-side pressure, actual market demand has struggled to keep pace, plunging the industry into widespread operational difficulties.
Downstream users in sectors such as slurry and shoe sole pulp have difficulty raising prices for their own products and cannot fully pass on high raw material costs. As a result, their production resumption has been slow; they adopt a cautious wait-and-see attitude toward high-priced adipic acid and only make purchases to meet rigid demand. Weak demand has become a key constraint preventing further price rises.
The severe divergence between costs and demand has drastically squeezed industry profit margins. Data indicates that by mid-March, adipic acid production profits had fallen into negative territory, with the industry generally operating at a loss. This price characteristic—"easier to rise than to fall"—truly reflects the gap in bargaining power between upstream and downstream of the industrial chain.

IV. Trend Outlook: The Arrival of the Industrial Chain Competition Era

Beyond short-term price fluctuations, the adipic acid industry is undergoing profound structural changes.
First, the supply structure is becoming more concentrated. After years of market competition and development, the industry is shifting from fragmentation to rational concentration. The capacity share of leading enterprises continues to rise, forming a self-regulating mechanism on the supply side that helps alleviate cutthroat competition.
Second, the dimension of competition is fully upgraded. Competition among enterprises has evolved from simple product cost control to building resilience across the entire industrial chain. Leading enterprises are reshaping cost advantages from the source by deploying integrated "benzene–adipic acid" production. Meanwhile, they are expanding downstream into high value-added fields such as PA66 and PBAT to secure future market space, and promoting product upgrading toward high-end nylons and engineering plastics.
Third, exploration of green technologies continues. Beyond traditional petrochemical routes, academia is actively pursuing more sustainable production methods. For instance, research has proposed a new method for the efficient electrosynthesis of adipic acid from cyclohexene under ambient temperature and pressure, offering new technical ideas for green and low-carbon production. This reflects the industry’s diversified exploration of sustainable development paths for the future.
In summary, short-term price fluctuations are a direct reflection of geopolitics and cost transmission, while the long-term competitive focus of the industry has shifted to the integration capability of the entire industrial chain and breakthroughs in green technologies. For market participants, while monitoring short-term market trends, it is even more critical to seize the profound opportunities brought by the evolution of the industry landscape.


声明：此篇为 Shandong Yongsheng Chemical Co., Ltd. 原创文章，转载请标明出处链接： https://www.sdyshx.com/sys-nd/229.html
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