Observations on pesticide and intermediate capacity investments in China 2024

This article is first published in the "2025 China Pesticide Industry Watch" magazine. To read more articles from the magazine, please click picture in below.

In 2024, affected by the continued pesticide price declination, the Chinese pesticide capacity investments appeared cautious and gradually became rational. In the interim, the production layout of popular products and intermediates reflected the market demand and future trends of popular pesticide technical and intermediates.  

• According to incomplete statistics from AgroPages, the proposed production capacity of pesticidal active ingredients in China showed a slight decline in 2024. However, it still reached an annual 2.2 million tons, including more than 10,000 tons of new capacity of 22 pesticide technical varieties.

• Investments in popular product varieties such as glufosinate and prothioconazole were active, but significant pesticide investments decreased. Capacity planning of some pesticides remained restrained, and investments appeared conservative.

• The proposed new capacity of sub-new pesticides continued to grow while manufacturers proactively planned the production capacity of part of advantageous Chinese pesticides. 

• More than 40 pesticidal intermediates have been planned, reaching a capacity of more than 10,000 tons, leading to the status of a sufficient supply of primary intermediates for PMIDA, glufosinate-P, and prothioconazole.

The report only shows product and capacity information. For the full report including information on the investing and constructing enterprises, please contact agropages@vip.163.com/ apnino@agropages.com 

1. In 2024, the proposed new capacity of 22 pesticidal active ingredients reached more than 10,000 tons, whilst the total planned capacity experienced a slight decrease

According to incomplete statistics from AgroPages, nearly 200 pesticide projects were being placed under construction, with the addition of a new capacity of more than 2.2 million tons, which is a slight decrease over 2.4 million tons of new capacity in 2023. The newbuild with the production capacity involves 379 pesticide technical products and intermediate products, including 1.05 million tons of pesticidal active ingredients under construction (1.28 million tons in 2023), across 16 provinces, 75 chemical industry parks, 226 technical products and 128 investors. Among the 226 technical products, there are 91 herbicides/herbicidal safeners (40.27%), 62 insecticides/acaricides/nematicides/molluscicides (27.43%), and 61 fungicides (27.01%).

Table 1 shows the planned new capacity of 22 technical products over 10,000 tons in 2024, including 15 herbicides, four insecticides, and three fungicides.

Among the 22 pesticide technical products with a planned capacity of more than 10,000 tons in 2024, there are six major product varieties with export value of above US$100 million in 2019 (marked in red in Table 1), namely atrazine, glyphosate, glufosinate, clethodim, tebuconazole and chlorantraniliprole as well as one herbicide with export value of US$50-100 million which is s-metolachlor. Among the 22 technical products, eight were ranked among the global top 20 among herbicides/insecticides/fungicides in 2021, e.g., atrazine, glyphosate, clethodim, glufosinate chlorantraniliprole, thiamethoxam, prothioconazole, and tebuconazole.

Table 1   Investments in Pesticide Technical in China in 2024

(Incomplete statistics of pesticide technical ≥ 10,000 tons of active ingredients)

2. Refrained planning of capacity of primary and high-value active ingredients 

According to incomplete statistics of AgroPages, in 2024, some of the significant pesticide technical such as glufosinate-P, pyroxasulfone, and prothioconazole not only continued to rank ahead in capacity newbuild but also showed a higher number of newbuild of these projects than projects for other products, reflecting the full recognition of the value of these products by industry players, who were actively participating in or continuing to launch newbuilds of capacity of these products（Table2）. 

Other products such as tembotrions, flonicamid, indoxacarb, cyantraniliprole, boscalid, trifloxystrobin, and fluopyram may not be particularly significant in respect of capacity increase, but the number of new projects built by manufacturers is significantly higher. The fact that many enterprises joined these new investments reflected, to a certain extent, their increased favor for these products.

Since 2024, a number of global front-rank and high-value pesticide technical, such as fluopyram and cyantraniliprole, have been successfully registered and localized by Chinese companies, followed by planned launch of newbuild of capacity by interested companies. However, it is worth noting that compared to the launch of a new build with a capacity of more than 10,000 tons in chlorantraniliprole at that time, the present pesticide manufacturers appeared much more restrained in their capacity planning for a newly off-patented high-value pesticide technical. Taking fluopyram as an example, after the expiration of the patent of the key compound of the product in 2023, seven companies announced plans to invest in such projects in 2024 to join the investment in the building of the capacity of the product. Still, the total proposed production capacity is only 2,790 tons, of which only one company planned a production capacity of 1,000 tons annually, whilst the proposed production capacity of other companies is 500 tons or below. There may be two reasons behind this phenomenon. The first, although the patent of the key compound of fluopyram in China has expired, its use as a nematicide is still protected by patent, which undoubtedly brings potential legal risks to the launch of new production capacity; the second, in the face of the overall adverse market situation, pesticide manufacturers are becoming more and more cautious about the production layout of sub-new pesticide products. As a result, manufacturers would prefer a refrained move and strive to find the best balance between market competition and risk control.

In addition, this compares with the announcement of billions (RMB yuan) of large investment plans by a lot of leading Chinese enterprises in 2023, where investment in a single project could even exceed 10 billion yuan. However, in 2024, significant pesticide investments were significantly reduced. There was rarely an investment in any single project exceeding RMB1 billion yuan, as most of the pesticide investment amount stayed within 500 million yuan. This change reveals the start of rational and refrained industry development after the rapid and aggressive expansion in the previous years. Hence, enterprises are paying more attention to risk assessment and long-range planning for investment decisions. 

Table 2   Popular Pesticide Technical Investments 2024

(Incomplete statistics of pesticide technical products ≥3 investors)

3. Sub-new off-patent pesticide technical capacity newbuild 

In 2024, the proposed production capacity of sub-new pesticides continued to grow remarkably (Table 3). According to incomplete statistics from AgroPages, plans were announced to build nine new pesticide technical products coming off patents in 2019 – 2022, six of which are herbicides.

As a hot herbicide that has continued to be popular in the past two years, the proposed production capacity of pyroxasulfone increased significantly again in 2024. Besides pyroxasulfone, tembotrions is a herbicide variety with a frequent capacity to launch newbuilds in the past two years. In 2024, eight enterprises announced new builds for 4,850 tons of proposed production capacity of tembotrions. In addition, the launch of a new build with a capacity of sub-new compounds pinoxaden, aminopyralid, saflufenacil, and metamifop, which came off patents between 2019 and 2022, was also planned in 2024. 

Chlorantraniliprole has been the most appealing insecticide for increasing capacity. Its proposed capacity increase in 2024 was 32,600 tons, of which 30,000 tons were announced to be built by one company. In June 2024, this company made public its plans to launch eight new projects at one time, of which four involved pesticide technical and intermediates, at a total investment of RMB1.1 billion yuan. The proposed projects cover a series of pyridine derivatives, such as K acid and 2,3-dichloropyridine, with an estimated annual output of more than 100,000 tons. From a planning perspective, the company is committed to building a complete industry chain covering pyridine intermediates, up to downstream major pyridine pesticide technical.

Table 3   Proposed Capacity of 2019-2022 Off-patent Pesticide Technical 

(Incomplete statistics)

By 2025, despite the off-patent pesticides in 2023-2024, some products cannot be quickly localized because of the patentee’s patent-associated restrictions or other factors. In addition, for a different product, differences exist between its patent expiration date and proposed newbuild of production capacity; even for products of similar expiration date, the proposed capacity may be different. For example, cyantraniliprole, fluopyram, indaziflam, and bixafen are all pesticidal active ingredients that will be coming off patent in 2023-2024. According to incomplete statistics from AgroPages, there was a proposed capacity newbuild of cyantraniliprole of 8,000 tons in 2024, while the proposed production capacity of fluopyram was 2,790 tons involving as many as seven investors, which reveals the manufacturer’s high attention to the product.

Fluxapyroxad is BASF’s SDHI strategic fungicide, which has been remarkably successful in major pesticide markets around the world, such as Latin America, with global sales of nearly US$500 million, whose compound patent will expire in February 2026. According to incomplete statistics, in 2024 Chinese companies already planned the launch of a newbuild of the product. 

In addition to the above-mentioned novel pesticides, in 2014, there were 13 products within a valid period of the patent already planned proactively by Chinese companies for the launch of production. The compound patent of these 13 products will expire between 2026-2041 (marked in a dark shade in Table 4); it should be noted that among the 13 products which are already planned for production, eight are created by local Chinese enterprises, including flusulfinam, broclozone, fluchloraminopyr and flufenoximacil created by KingAgroot, feproxydim created by Cynda, and bisulflufen, meperfluthrin, and heptafluthrin created by Yangnong Chemical, which reflects the growing capability of Chinese manufacturers in the creation of new pesticides. 

Table 4   Proposed Capacity of Off-patent Active Ingredient since 2023

(Incomplete statistics)

4. More than 40 pesticide intermediates are being planned to add new capacity of more than 10,000 tons, and key intermediates such as PMIDA, glufosinate-P, and prothioconazole are scheduled with ample capacity to ensure sufficient market supply 

In 2024, 84 enterprises in China invested in the production of 153 pesticide intermediates, covering a total capacity of 1.146 million tons, slightly larger than the production capacity of pesticide technical. Out of the pesticide intermediates production, 40-plus products are proposed to have a production capacity of more than 10,000 tons. 

Among the proposed pesticide intermediates, the new production capacity of methyldiethoxyphosphine, the key intermediate of glufosinate, shows a significant increase of 110,000 tons. Also, glycine and PMIDA are both key intermediates for the synthesis of glyphosate. For these two intermediates, the proposed/completed production capacity in 2024 was 100,000 tons and 25,000 tons, respectively. 

Besides pesticide intermediates involving PMIDA and glufosinate-P series, α-acetyl-γ-butyrolactone, as a key intermediate for the synthesis of the major fungicide prothioconazole, saw an increased capacity of 59,000 tons following the continued increase of production of prothioconazole. N-(1-ethylpropyl)-3,4-dimethylaniline is an intermediate of the major herbicide pendimethalin, for which the leading manufacturer BSM invested in the launch of an annual 40,000-ton new capacity to improve its product industry chain. 3-BroMo-1-(3-chloropyridin-2-yl)-1H-pyrazole-5-carboxylic acid, 2-Amino-5-chloro-3-methylbenzoic acid and 2,3-Dichloropyridine are essential intermediates for synthesis of the broad-spectrum insecticide chlorantraniliprole, etc. In 2024, the proposed production capacity of the three intermediates reached 20,000 tons, 10,000 tons, and 14,700 tons, respectively. Ethyl 3-(difluoromethyl)-1-methyl-1h-pyrazole-4-carboxylate plays a key role in production of SDHI fungicides including fluxapyroxad, for which the planned capacity in 2013 reached 12,000 tons.

Other pesticide intermediates such as methomyl oxime, 2,3-dichloro-5-(trifluoromethyl)pyridine, 2-Chloro-5-(chloromethyl)thiazole and (E)-O-(3-Chloro-2-propenyl)hydroxylamine are essential intermediates for pesticide synthesis, for which new capacity investments are included in Table 5 as below.

Table 5   Pesticide Intermediate Investments in China in 2024

(Incomplete statistics of more significant capacity/popular intermediates)

5. Actual launch of new production capacity is falling behind the scheduled capacity newbuild 

Since 2024, the pesticide active ingredients or intermediates projects invested by several pesticide manufacturers have progressed into important milestones, either with the announcement of the start of production, trial production, or project completion.

According to incomplete statistics from AgroPages, from 2024 to the present, a total of 40 technical products (roughly 85,000 tons) and 23 intermediates (200,000 tons) have been actually brought to production in China, involving 28 investors. The completed and operational projects cover various technical products, including herbicides such as glufosinate-P, S-meolachlor, fluroxypyr, flumioxazin, and sulfentrazone, fungicides such as captan, prothioconazole, tebuconazole and boscalid, insecticides such as dinotefuran and tolfenpyrad. 

Nevertheless, the vast majority of pesticide technical projects, which were announced in 2023, are not yet operational in 2024. In particular, there is a big gap between the announced capacity and the actual production capacity in the end. The proposed new production capacity of glufosinate in 2023 is as high as 158,000 tons, plus the new capacity of 39,000 tons of glufosinate-P, thus totaling nearly 200,000 tons, whilst in 2024, only a total of 25,000 tons of glufosinate technical invested by Wynca and Yonon were announced being operational; in 2023, S-metolachlor was planned to add 40,000 tons of capacity while in 2024 only Jiangsu Changqing’s annual 5,000-ton capacity was actually put into operation; in 2023, prothioconazole was planned to add a capacity of 19,000 tons while in 2014 only Anhui Jiuyi’s 5000-ton capacity was announced as operational. In addition, the other pesticides technical which were planned in 2013 with a production capacity of more than 10,000 tons in 2023, such as mancozeb, clethodim, diquat, thiamethoxam, 2,4-D isooctyl ester, glyphosate, chlorantraniliprole, pendimethalin, 2-Methyl-4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid, pyraclostrobin, and acetamiprid, have had no updates of further information in 2024, most of which may be still under construction. This indicates that despite the planning in the early stages, the planned construction and scheduled operation of these projects face many challenges and constraints during project implementation.

Table 6   Operation and Production of Pesticide and Intermediates in China from 2024 to Present 

(Incomplete statistics)

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