In
early April, the ex-works price of prochloraz TC continued the uptrend
during March, up by 14.58% MoM, but down by 1.79% YoY. The main reason
for the price hike was the equipment overhauls by part producers, which
resulted in short supply in the market. Among the major prochloraz TC
producers, Jiangxi Huihe Chemical Co., Ltd. (Jiangxi Huihe) and Jilin
Lesi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. were under equipment maintenance, while
Yongnong BioScience Co., Ltd. was in normal operation in early April.
In the recent year, the ex-works price trend of prochloraz TC could be divided into three stages:
From
April–Nov. 2023: The prochloraz TC price first decreased on sluggish
demand and then plateaued. The stable price was attributed to the price
uptick of raw materials in Oct., which helped shore up the cost.
However, as raw material prices declined, the TC price also went down,
but overall at a stable level.
From
Nov. 2023–March 2024: After a short-lived price decline over some
producers' destocking in late Nov. 2023, prochloraz TC registered a
stabilising price by March 2024.
From
March–early April 2024: Prochloraz TC saw a rapid increase in price as
part producers conducted equipment maintenance, plus a low inventory
level on the market, which leads to tight spot goods at present.
Recent
years have seen rising demand for prochloraz since it can serve as a
substitute for fungicide varieties such as triazole, benzimidazole and
strobilurin. According to the latest release of the Monitoring Report on Pesticide Resistance of Agricultural Pests in China in 2023,
provinces like Zhejiang, Hubei and Hunan have spotted strains of rice
blast resistant to pyraclostrobin and azoxystrobin. It is advised that,
during the disease control, prochloraz, isoprothiolane, tricyclazole,
and similar fungicides with distinct modes of action could be alternated
or rotated with strobilurin fungicides to retard the emergence of
resistance.
The
synthesis of prochloraz TC involves intermediates including imidazole,
2,4,6-trichlorophenol and triphosgene, with reactions such as amination,
acylation, etherification, condensation, acidification, neutralisation
and precipitation, generating a substantial amount of wastewater. In
recent years, a part of enterprises reduced material loss and sewage
production through process optimisation, for the sake of maintaining
market competitiveness and satisfying the environmental protection
requirements. In April 2018, the prochloraz TC line of Jiangsu Huifeng
Bio Agriculture Co., Ltd. was required to suspend production due to
environmental issues, and production resumed in March 2020. To lift
market strengths, Jiangxi Huihe is carrying out an automation
transformation and upgrading project on the 2,000 t/a prochloraz TC
production installation to form a production scale of 3,000 t/a. The
project passed the environmental impact assessment in Oct. 2023.