Summary: Jiangsu Sword's wholly-owned subsidiary Ningxia Surongda has recently completed construction of its 76,000 t/a pesticide intermediate project and put the lines into trial run. Once the new capacity successfully unleashed, Jiangsu Sword's pesticide intermediate business will be greatly boosted.

In late Oct., Jiangsu Sword Agrochemicals Co., Ltd. (Jiangsu Sword) revealed that its wholly-owned subsidiary Ningxia Surongda Chemical Co., Ltd. (Ningxia Surongda) had brought the lines for 76,000 t/a pesticide intermediates in the Ningxia production base into trial run since 30 Sept., 2022. According to its plan, the trial production will last until 29 March, 2023. Intermediate products and their designed capacity planned in this large-scale project are: 20,000 t/a hydrazine hydrate, 10,000 t/a 1,2,4-triazole, 6,000 t/a thiocarbohydrazide, 10,000 t/a epoxide, 10,000 t/a pinacolone, 8,000 t/a p-chlorobenzaldehyde, 6,000 t/a triazinone and 6,000 t/a 1,1-dichloropinacolin.

Jiangsu Sword is a backbone pesticide manufacturer in China, engaged in R&D, production and sale of pesticides. It established Ningxia Surongda in Feb. 2018 in the New Material Park of Ningdong Energy Chemical Industry Base, Yinchuan City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. It plans to build the new subsidiary into its Ningxia production base.

Before setting up the Ningxia production base, Jiangsu Sword already had two bases in Yancheng City of Jiangsu Province, one in Jianhu County Economic Development Zone and the other in the Yanhai Chemical Industrial Park of Binhai County. The former, Jianhu base, focuses on pesticide formulation production, and the latter, Binhai base, mainly produces pesticide intermediates and pesticide technical products. However, operation in the two bases in Jiangsu has been challenged by workplace safety inspections and environmental protection inspections in recent years. Especially after the severe explosion in Xiangshui County on 21 March, 2019, the Binhai base was then ordered to suspend for rectification by local government.

The Binhai base once had, before the suspension, active production capacity of 1,000 t/a triadimefon TC, 400 t/a triadimenol TC, 2,000 t/a tebuconazole TC, 1,000 t/a propineb TC, 1,000 t/a flutriafol TC, 200 t/a hexaconazole TC, 50 t/a bitertanol TC, 200 t/a diniconazole TC, 500 t/a cyproconazole TC, 200 t/a azoxystrobin TC, 1,000 t/a bentazone TC, 1,800 t/a metribuzin TC, 1,000 t/a nitenpyram TC, 1,000 t/a acetamiprid TC, 500 t/a paclobutrazol TC, 50 t/a uniconazole TC, 2,600 t/a pinacolone, 1,300 t/a 1-chloropinacolone, 2,500 t/a 1,1-dichloropinacolin and 3,000 t/a triazinone. After several rounds of rectification, some production lines have resumed production—as of 17 Oct., 2022, the lines for the four intermediates and cyproconazole TC, tebuconazole TC, metribuzin TC, triadimefon TC and triadimenol TC had been approved of resumption. On its way to restart production, the Binhai base also took the opportunity to shed the lines for nitenpyram TC, acetamiprid TC, flutriafol TC and hexaconazole TC. And currently, there is no update on the progress of resumption of the production capacity for the rest products in the Binhai base.

The decision to launch the 76,000 t/a pesticide intermediate project in Ningxia was made based upon Jiangsu Sword's development plan and supply-demand dynamics in the market. The intermediates planned in the project are all upstream materials for the production of its existing fungicides TC and herbicides TC. Some intermediates are even main products with active capacity in the Jiangsu production base. The other intermediates also help lay the foundation for the company to further extend to manufacturing other pesticides TC. In general, production of and R&D on low-cost, high-quality intermediate products is one of the important guarantees to push pesticide industry forward. And to Jiangsu Sword itself, with the new capacity in the subsidiary successfully unleashed, its pesticide intermediate business will be boosted significantly.