Price Hanna Consultants LLC, a management consulting firm whose principals have specialized in the nonwoven products, hygiene absorbent products and related fields, worldwide, for more than 35 years, has published a new report which provides comprehensive global and regional market information on spunbonded and spunmelt nonwoven polypropylene manufacturing costs and profitability, demand and capacities through 2020. The report provides detailed information on capacity by producer, country, line, and technology and beam configuration and compares regional and global supply to demand. The report is of value to companies at all levels of the spunbonded and spunmelt nonwoven polypropylene value chain to enhance their understanding of capacities, comparative producer costs and profitability and regional and global supply/demand. The report is available for immediate delivery in hard copy or electronic PDF.

From 2010 to 2015, 37 production lines with an annual nameplate capacity of 15,000 tonnes or more were commissioned around the world totaling more than 685,000 tonnes of nameplate capacity. During this period, 24 new producers began using this nonwoven technology worldwide. Between the end of 2015 and 2020, another 259,000 tonnes of nameplate capacity has already or will be commissioned globally and even more is likely to be installed. These lines will serve growing demand in emerging and developed markets, increase the availability of light weight, high strength spunbonded and spunmelt nonwovens and enhance the cost-of-manufacture position of producers. This large increment of capacity will affect regional capacity utilization and challenge the continued operation of early generation technology. Our report provides a detailed forecast and analysis of supply, demand and machine utilization each year from 2015 – 2020 in each global region. Demand for polypropylene spunbonded nonwovens is growing at attractive rates and will absorb new capacity by 2020 or before in a number of regions. Hygiene demand continues to dominate consumption in this technology segment. Demand growth is improving due to increased product and market penetration. Positioning of new plants in India, Africa and throughout the Asia-Pacific region signifies demand growth in these locations. Several major factors influence producer profitability around the world, including raw material costs, supply/demand imbalances, increasing use of modern, low-cost technology, emergence of new global and regional producers, shifts in merchant market versus captive demand, producer consolidation and restructuring. Many spunbonded polypropylene producers struggle with profitability, while others are performing well. In some regions, capacity rationalization has occurred as new technology is commissioned.  Modern, high output lines have been, and will continue to be, installed which will take share from older, less productive units placing increased pressure on existing producers operating older technology to remain cost-competitive.

The Price Hanna Consultants study provides significant new findings on the following topics:
• Perspective on regional and global capacity and demand development in 2009 and estimates for each year from 2015 to 2020.
• Estimates of imports and exports by region and their impact on regional capacity utilization and planning.
• Analysis of regional output capacity capable of supplying modern hygiene end uses by individual machine and in total by producer and region as compared to regional demand.
• Cost-of-manufacture estimates for selected leading regional producers using the latest generation technology based on estimates of Q2 2016 polypropylene costs.