Rising costs raise pesticide prices

In 2010, pesticide production entered a high-cost stage. In the fourth quarter of 2010, although the value of pesticide sales was off-season, the prices of bulk conventional pesticides were 10% to 20% higher than in the fourth quarter of 2009. For example, the original glyphosate was 24,500 yuan (t price, the same below). The original drug for lambda-cyhalothrin was 170,000 to 175,000 yuan, the drug for cypermethrin was 97,000 to 98,000 yuan, and the drug for chlorpyrifos was 34,000 to 35,000 yuan. According to statistics, the prices of bulk conventional pesticides accounted for 70% to 80%. There are three major factors in the production of pesticide products entering the high-cost stage:

First, the price of raw materials has risen, and the cost of pesticide production companies has increased rapidly. The increase in raw material prices is the primary factor that drives the price increase of pesticides. The price of pesticide products fluctuates with the rise and fall of upstream raw materials. Due to the large price increase of organic solvents, the price of yellow phosphorus, which is the basic raw material of organophosphorus pesticides, also rose steadily, forcing organophosphorus products such as chlorpyrifos, dichlorvos and propofol to increase by more than 10%. The nicotine amine important raw material acetonitrile began to appear in 2009 supply and demand gap, the price from 20,000 to 30,000 yuan in the low rose to 120,000 yuan; in 2010 remained at a high price, nitenpyrazine mainstream manufacturers 95% of the original drug The price has reached 420,000 yuan. If acetonitrile prices remain high, the price of nitenpyram original drugs will also have a certain increase. The cost of glyphosate is also rapidly rising, and its main raw material, paraformaldehyde, has been on the rise. At the same time, the price of natural gas has increased substantially, which has increased the production costs of natural gas-derived glycine and iminodiacetonitrile. In addition, the rise in international crude oil prices has led to an increase in the cost of diethanolamine, the main raw material for the production of glyphosate by IDA.

Second, the implementation of the cost of comprehensive environmental management and the implementation of energy conservation and emission reduction have increased the cost of the enterprise. The pesticide industry is not only the industry with the most extensive POPs involved, but also the industry that focuses on the monitoring of environmental pollution in the country and has high emission reduction requirements. As the state has stepped up environmental protection efforts, pesticide companies have increased their investment in environmental protection facilities, and the “three wastes” treatment costs have increased, which has led to a significant increase in the production costs of pesticides. For example, the glyphosate ex-factory price is currently 24,500 yuan, while the treatment of high-concentration waste liquid requires only 5,000 yuan for each ton of glyphosate produced. For example, in addition to other "three wastes" treatment fees, the environmental cost per ton of glyphosate is 1 About 10,000 yuan. At present, there are more than 2,600 pesticide production enterprises in China. The average environmental protection investment accounts for 4.86% of the total investment. The investment in environmental protection of developed countries' pesticide projects in Europe and America accounts for about 30% to 40% of the total investment. Energy conservation and emission reduction have become the decisive factors for the survival of pesticide production enterprises in China.

The third is the increase in foreign pesticide registration and settlement of trade friction costs. In order to release the huge production capacity, China's pesticide companies have a greater degree of foreign dependence. In order to make the profits of pesticide exporters not be ingested by foreign companies that have “branded exports”, many companies do not hesitate to spend large sums of money overseas to register products. The cost of registering in Africa is about 20,000 U.S. dollars. The cost of registering a brand in Russia is about 100,000 U.S. dollars, and the cost of registration in the European Union and the United States is even more expensive. Due to the rapid increase in the export of pesticides in China, and the low prices, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, the European Union and the United States have implemented anti-dumping investigations on pesticide products in China. In recent years, many companies in China have spent a lot of money to fight international trade lawsuits in order to resolve the trade frictions that are increasing with the export of pesticides, quelling anti-dumping investigations.