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 30 years, has published a new report which provides comprehensive global and regional market information on spunbonded and spunmelt nonwoven polypropylene manufacturing costs, demand and capacities through 2019. 
 
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 regional and global supply/demand. The report is available for immediate delivery in hard copy or electronic PDF.
 
From 2009 to 2014, 47 high output production lines were commissioned around the world totaling more than 750,000 tons of nameplate capacity. During this period, 21 new producers began using this nonwoven technology worldwide.  Between the end of 2014 and 2019, another 330,000 tons 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 lightweight, 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. 
 
The new report provides a detailed forecast and analysis of supply, demand and machine utilization each year from 2014 – 2019 in each global region, including China, Southern Asia (India) and Africa. Demand for polypropylene spunbonded nonwovens is growing at attractive rates and will absorb new capacity by 2019 in many 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, Northern Africa, China, Asia-Pacific and Indonesia signify demand growth in these locations. Several major factors influence producer profitability around the world, including volatile 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 2014 to 2019.
• 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 Q1 2015 polypropylene costs.