December 9, 2025 - According to the latest sorting out by the global chemical industry research team, China's styrene industry is undergoing dual transformations of continuous capacity expansion and market price adjustment. As a key product in the petrochemical and chemical sector, styrene is widely used in general plastics, synthetic rubber and other fields, and the dynamics of its industrial chain have attracted much attention from the industry. On the production side, the mainstream process of styrene is ethylbenzene dehydrogenation, accounting for three-quarters of domestic capacity, followed by ethylbenzene co-oxidation at about a quarter, and C8 separation at only 1%. In terms of raw material supply, both ethylbenzene dehydrogenation and co-oxidation processes rely on ethylbenzene produced by the Friedel-Crafts alkylation reaction of pure benzene and ethylene, and the co-oxidation process can also co-produce propylene oxide. Currently, China's styrene capacity has exceeded 22 million tons per year, with East China accounting for two-thirds, South China ranking second, and Northeast, North China and Northwest China together accounting for less than 10%. The market price has shown a significant downward trend. After reaching a phased high of about 9,800 yuan per ton in June 2024, the price has continued to fluctuate downward to around 6,500 yuan per ton by the end of 2025, a drop of more than 30%. At the same time, the capacity of planned and under-construction plants in the industry exceeds 5 million tons per year, mainly to be put into the market during 2026-2030, and market competition is expected to further intensify in the future. The demand structure on the consumer side is stable. Polystyrene (PS), acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymer (ABS), and expandable polystyrene (EPS) each absorb about a quarter of styrene capacity. Among the three, PS and ABS are among the five major general-purpose plastics, highlighting the important position of styrene in the national economy. In addition, styrene is also widely used in the production of styrene-acrylic emulsion, unsaturated resin, synthetic rubber and fine chemical products. For more information, you can click: https://www.tiktok.com/@mia_iot