Tebuconazole has a serious overcapacity in China and India

By AgroPages and  China Jiangsu International Economic and Technical Cooperation Group, Ltd

• Compared to 2019 and 2020, India’s tebuconazole technical and formulation export have increased significantly in 2021, particularly the significant increase in formulation export, which grew from 969 tons in 2019 to 4,830 tons in 2021, at a fourfold increase.
  

• India’s import of pentanone (key intermediate of tebuconazole ) peaked in 2020, which however decreased sharply in 2021. AgroPages is trying to learn more about the reasons for the decrease, readers are welcome to share information with us. On the other hand, it is certain that the key intermediates pentanone and triazole are mainly supplied from China. 

• AgroPages learned that the frequent policy changes in recent years have imposed pressure on continuous production and new capacity launch of many manufacturers, having led to customer’s switch to procurement from India, where a large number of productions are resettled. For this reason, China’s agrochemical industry is hoped to get back to stable and healthy development as early as possible.

Global tebuconazole production capcity breaking through 40,000 tons to reach 50,000 tons

There are a number of Chinese enterprises with certain scale of production of tebuconazole, including Jiangsu Sevencontinent, Huihuang, Sword Agrochemical, Hubei Benxing, Jiangsu Huanghai, Tuoqiu, Jiangxi Huihe, Jiangsu Agrochem Laboratory, Sanjiang Sunjoy, Nutrichem and Jiangsu Fengden, totaling to some 30,000 tons.

Concerning China’s export product specification, tebuconazole 97% is the main export product, which accounts for 50.32% of the total tebuconazole technical while tebuconazole 98% accounts for 23.47%, being mainly supplied by Jiangsu Sevencontinent and Nutrichem. These two product varieties contain less impurity. It is reported that Jiangsu Sevencontinent, who participated in drafting the Chinese national industry standard GB22602-2008 for tebuconazole technical, is now filing for an FAO tebuconazole technical standard. Jiangsu Sevencontinent has launched a newbuild in Jining of Shandong Province for an annual capacity of 10,000 tons. If everything goes smoothly, the new capacity will be brought on stream in 2022 to become the world’s largest tebuconazole technical manufacturer. 

In addition, Bayer owns 4,000-ton tebuconazole production facilities. Also, India has certain scale of tebuconazole technical capacity, which is estimated to be roughly 3,500 tons in 2021. As India’s production relies on import of the intermediates pentanone and triazole from China, India does not have the industrial chain advantage. Anyways, as a 12,000-ton product in stable demand, it is worthwhile for main industry players to study the future market prospect of the product. 

Mainstream production process

At present, the mainstream process of tebuconazole involves several key steps: the first is the use of pinacolone and p-chlorobenzaldehyde for synthesizing of 1-(4-Chlorophenyl)-4,4-dimethyl-3-pentanone; the second is the cyclization of pentanone to obtain EOD; the third is EOD-triazole synthesizing to obtain tebuconazole.

Making of pentanone based on condensation and hydrogenation 

Epoxidation reaction

1-(4-Chlorophenyl)-4,4-dimethyl-3-pentanone is placed into epoxidation reaction with dimethyl sulfate under the action of alkaline and catalyst with the use of dimethyl sulfide as solvent, resulting in epoxide, methanol, potassium sulfate and water, whilst the side reaction is a neutral reaction of hydrochloric acid and potassium hydroxide. The catalyst is not involved in reaction.

Synthesis

The synthetic reaction between epoxide and triazole under alkaline and catalyst leads to generation of the product tebuconazole and the side-reaction product isomer tebuconazole. At the end of reaction, hydrochloric acid is added for reaction with potassium hydroxide to have a neutral reaction.

Among the current mainstream processes, pentanone and triazole are key raw materials for synthesis of tebuconazole. As regards to pentanone, some enterprises have to rely on outsourcing, bearing in mind that prices of pentanone’s raw materials pinacolone and p-chlorobenzaldehyde have been fluctuating quite significantly. It is said that Jiangsu Sevencontinent can produce pinacolone based on the initial material isoamylene and 4-formylbenzoic acid based on the initial material p-chlorobenzaldehyde, having formed a production chain under its own control. 

The price of triazole has also fluctuated a lot in recent months, which once hit the highest price of Yuan110,000 per ton. Now it has fallen to around Yuan70,000 per ton, this kind of market is a test of the production chain of enterprises.

Export of tebuconazole from China and India 

China

In 2019, total export of tebuconazole technical amounted to $153 million, totaling to 9,000 tons converted to 100% content, which used to be 8,850 tons in 2018; In 2019 China’s export of tebuconazole technical and formulation amounted to approximately $200 million, having exported a total of 7,840 tons of tebuconazole technical covering content of 97%, 98%, 96%, 95% and 91%. Among them, the 97% ranked the first accounting for 43% of the total export of tebuconazole technical at value of $82.91 million, followed by 98% content accounting for 21%, whilst 96% content accounted for 11%.

Out of the formulation products, tebuconazole 430g/L SC was of the highest value in 2019 amounting to US$20 million, followed by 25% EC with an export value of $7.79 million, whilst 250g/L EW was of export value of $7.4 million. A total of 14 kinds of formulation products were exported, mixtures with azoxystrobin hit the highest export value of $3.18 million; the other mixtures involved trifloxystrobin ($1.47 million), chlorothalonil ($1.11 million) and azoxystrobin.cyproconazole ($1.1 million).

Looking at China’s tebuconazole export data from January 2017 to April 2020, outbound shipment generally started to increase significantly before October and reached peak after October, which would still remain high in the first few months in the second year. It is noted that this year tebuconazole export volume has not yet increased up to December, showing that that the global demand is not rising yet.

India

India’s export of technical and formulation products has increased significantly in the past three years. In 2019, India exported 508 tons of tebuconazole technical and 969 tons of formulation products; In 2020, India exported 533 tons of tebuconazole technical and 2,633 tons of formulation products; In 2021, India exported 1,278 tons of tebuconazole technical and 4,830 tons of formulation products. The data of 2021 reveal twofold volume increase in technical export and fourfold increase in formulation products versus 2019. Major exporters include Sumitomo Chemical India and Astec Lifesciences.

Astec Lifesciences is India’s largest pentanone importer in 2020; other major importers include Anupam Rasayan and Sumitomo Chemical India. India imported 1,714.3 tons of pentanone in 2019, 2,580.9 tons in 2020 and 550 tons in 2021. The data show that there has been a sudden drop in India’s import of pentanone this year, Astec is likely the reason. Of course, it might be a mistake in the data collection, which needs further verification. The sharp decline in import of pentanone does not match the surge in tebuconazole, we would welcome industry experts to participate in analysis and information exchange. 

Table    2021 Major Tebuconazole Exporters in India

Terminal market of tebuconazole

In 2003 and 2004, due to the outbreak of soybean rust in Brazil, the use of tebuconazole increased rapidly, which ranked the first place among triazole fungicides until 2009. Since the patent expiration in 2007, competition was intensified and there was an adverse impact on the market, with market value falling to $400 million in 2010 until 2011 when the market was somewhat recovered. It has remained stable in recent years, with a global sale of $584 million in 2019. 

In the past year, tebuconazole is still a business favored by a number of large companies, who have launched mixtures to lots of countries. In November 2020, Bayer launched to Canadian market its TilMOR, a fungicide mixing with prothioconazole, for application to wheat, barley and oat; In March 2021, Corteva launched to Brazilian market its Bim Max (tricyclazole 200 g/L + tebuconazole 160 g/L) for application to paddy rice; In July 2021, Sumitomo Chemical launched to Argentine market its fungicide Excalia Max (inpyrfluxam + tebuconazole) which can control soybean rust and wheat rust, this product is scheduled for official release in 2022.

Pilarquim’s Pilartep, a fungicide containing pyraclostrobin and tebuconazole, has been officially launched to the Kazakhstan market in 2020 for control of wheat powdery mildew, rust disease and gibberellic disease.

Tebuconazole is an efficient, broad-spectrum and systemic triazole fungicide developed by Bayer in 1986, being preventive, curative and eradicative. It inhibits the biosynthesis of fungal ergosterol, with a wide fungicidal spectrum and a long-lasting effect. Tebuconazole is widely used in seed treatment (mainly suspended seeding coating) and foliar spraying (especially suspension and emulsion in water). Its main applications cover wheat, rice, peanut, vegetable, banana, apple, pear, corn and sorghum for control of a large variety of fungal diseases. It also promotes plant growth and yield increase. Foliar spraying is the main method of application, which accounts for about 55% of the use of tebuconazole. 

With regard to registration, as of December 1, 2021, there have been 49 tebuconazole technical and 810 formulation registrations in China. After 2019, there has not been a new registration of tebuconazole technical. Tebuconazole is widely mixable with other fungicides, having been registered in mixes with 69 active ingredients. The largest number of mixtures are with trifloxystrobin (52), followed by prochloraz (47), pyraclostrobin (43), carbendazim (36) and azoxystrobin (34).

After years of applications, tebuconazole has grown into a mature fungicide product, which has taken up a relatively stable market share. Global sale of tebuconazole was $575 million in 2016, $598 million in 2017, $596 million in 2018 and $584 million in 2019. As shown by the registration distribution of multinationals, the product still has its vitality. However, the author has a big question mark for the time being as to how much capacity the increase tebuconazole market demand can support.

Any inquiry please contact the author:

Email: erwin@agropages.com 

Mob/Whatsapp: 0086 137 50884233 

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erwin-xue-7a5b8580/