There are two reasons for the rise in the price of copper foil for circuit boards. One is the rise in the price of copper, the raw material. Since 2016, the copper price has shown an upward trend. The strikes at large mines abroad have continued. The high pressure of domestic environmental protection policies made the copper price hit a high point of 53000 yuan/ton at the beginning of 2018.
Second, PCB copper foil manufacturers changed to produce lithium battery copper foil. Due to the rapid development of the new energy vehicle industry and the high profitability of lithium battery copper foil, its production has increased significantly. According to the data of China Electronics Copper Foil Information Network, it is estimated that in 2018, the annual capacity of newly added copper foil will be 118000 tons, of which the annual capacity of newly added PCB copper foil will be only 24000 tons, and the increase of 94000 tons will come from lithium battery copper foil.
Resin and glass fiber are also in the boom cycle. The main raw materials of epoxy resin are epoxy chloropropane and bisphenol A, and the price is high. In 2018, the price of crude oil continued to rise, and the supply of upstream glycerin of epichlorohydrin was increased, but the demand did not expand synchronously, so the price of epichlorohydrin has slightly declined recently; The price of phenol, the upstream raw material of bisphenol A, is at a high level, and the overall start-up of the plant is low. Some manufacturers are in short supply of goods, and the vendors have a positive intention to support the price. The strong market atmosphere has driven the price of bisphenol A to rise.
The raw materials of wave fiber include quartz sand, alumina and pyrophyllite. The reason why the industry keeps booming is that infrastructure, real estate and wind power investment support the demand side of glass fiber; The glass fiber supply is compressed under the pressure of environmental protection. In addition, glass fiber is a heavy asset industry. The domestic production of glass fiber has formed an oligopoly situation among Sinopec, Taishan Glass Fiber and Chongqing International, and the manufacturers have strong control over price.
Considering that the domestic PCB industry has increased demand for 5G, communications, automotive electronics and other products, the process of import substitution is still continuing, and PCB capacity expansion is obvious, the overall demand for copper clad laminate is expected to be strong. When the prices of raw materials are generally rising, CCL manufacturers usually maintain profitability through price adjustment. For example, Shengyi Technology raised the price of copper clad laminate three times in July, September and January 2017.
