On the evening of November 8, a news story about "South Korea's emergency call to China for urea for cars" suddenly rushed to the hot search. It was a bit confusing for the monk. Hey? The grand four small tiger countries, as complex as chips can be built, cars can also be built, but actually by urea - this seems to have no technical content of the thing stuck in the neck. Not only was it stuck in the neck, but it looked like things were serious.
In fact, since November, the "car urea shortage crisis" has not only continued to dominate the headlines of the South Korean media, but also the South Korean government has had to intervene in emergency multi-faceted coordination. According to Yonhap News Agency, lee Jae-ming, the presidential candidate of the ruling party and the Democratic Party, held an emergency press conference in the National Assembly on the 7th to express his position on the recent shortage of urea supply. He said that the urea supply problem has a wide range of impacts, and the discussion of tight supply due to high external dependence has a long history. After this statement, the situation continues to deteriorate.
The Korea Times reported that the government has taken action to allow the conversion of industrial-use urea into vehicle urea, but with little expected effect. With the shortage of urea, the hype of car urea has become a new business in South Korea, and there have even been recent incidents of trying to sell car urea at up to 20 times the purchase price in South Korea - there are reports that 10 liters of car urea are traded online for 200,000 won ($169), which is 20 times the usual price of about 10,000 won. There is also an influx of fraudulent schemes involving asking for money to be remitted, then taking the money and disappearing.
In this regard, the government has made an urgent effort to contain it, which has been considered an economic crime of manipulating the market. On the 8th, the South Korean government launched a special operation to crack down on urea solution (diesel exhaust gas treatment liquid) and urea speculation. From 0:00 on the same day, the Ministry of the Environment carried out a multi-departmental joint inspection against the illegal circulation of urea. According to the Law on Price Stabilization, depending on the date of inspection, the reserves of manufacturers, importers, sellers and urea importers of urea solutions shall not exceed 110% of the average monthly sales volume of the previous year, and violators will be sentenced to imprisonment of up to 3 years or a fine of up to 100 million won (about 540,000 yuan).
The Korea Times said that as many as 2 million freight diesel vehicles are expected to be unable to drive because of the shortage of vehicle urea, which may bring about a logistics crisis in South Korea - because these vehicles will not be able to operate in the absence of vehicle urea, and some of the latest diesel vehicles will not even be able to start without vehicle urea. How many trucks are there in South Korea, the total number of diesel vehicles is about 9.81 million, of which about 2.15 million must use vehicle urea for SCR systems. This means that the shortage problem could lead to the worst-case scenario in which all these vehicles will not be able to operate. They include emergency vehicles and logistics vehicles such as fire trucks, ambulances and police vehicles.
Here's an explanation of how to use urea in a car, which is a foreign thing to many people, but it's indispensable for trucks. Since 2014, the environmental protection departments of various countries have proposed to further reduce the nitrogen oxide pollutants emitted by diesel engines, and engine manufacturers have begun to use SCR technology (Selective Catalytic Reduction Technology) to meet the requirements of the environmental protection department. The diesel engine exhaust gas treatment liquid (commonly known in China: automotive urea, automotive urea, automotive environmental protection urea) is a consumable that must be used in SCR technology.
So what to do? Of course, it is to find the producing country to coordinate the supply of goods. In addition to sending a special mission to seek assistance from China, the largest importer, South Korea plans to promote diplomatic negotiations with the Chinese government to allow tens of thousands of tons of urea signed up to be shipped to South Korea through the customs fast-track. "Seoul Economy" reported on the 7th that the latest statistics show that 97.6% of the urea solution imported by South Korea from January to September this year came from China. Of course, the South Korean government has found that relying on a single source of goods is not very reliable, or to find new exporters, so Australia, which has imported very little before, has also been urgently mobilized.
South Korean media reported that the South Korean government has also made urgent purchases and requests for help from Australia, Vietnam and other countries, the South Korean government said that this week there will be 20,000 liters of urea from Australia, and South Korea even deployed warships to carry out rapid transportation. In addition, thousands of tons of automotive urea imports from multiple countries will be explored by the end of the year. The South Korean government plans to promote stabilization by diversifying the sources of imports and using military transport aircraft to reduce product and logistics costs. In addition, it will crack down anyone who tries to monopolize the market and speculate.
A manager of a major urea supplier in South Korea told the media that it is difficult to diversify the supply in a short period of time due to the single import channel in South Korea. "We already signed a contract with Russia in October, and it will only arrive in January. However, they are still only about 10% of the goods we have received from China in the past," the management said. He added that stocks could run out after November. The East Asia Daily expects that from next week, logistics industries such as express delivery will have trucks stopped running.
In addition to the logistics industry," the construction industry has also been affected by the crisis. The report pointed out that a large number of mechanical equipment used in construction projects need to be replenished with vehicle urea, and the long-term shortage may lead to the inability of engineering equipment such as mixer trucks transporting concrete to be unable to operate, and construction may be suspended. Yonhap News Agency reported that people in the construction industry predicted that the "urea shortage" may last until February next year, and is working on countermeasures to deal with it.
So, why is there a crisis of car urea out of stock in South Korea? The first is because there are no producers in South Korea. "It's not a technical problem, it's just a raw material problem." A person in charge of kolanin, a domestic car urea producer, told Spiegel pro. In the past, there were companies that produced automotive urea in South Korea, but South Korea's own automotive urea was not competitive with the automotive urea produced by countries that produced coal or natural gas, so around 2013, local companies have been delisted, which has led to the situation that South Korea's automotive urea is almost completely dependent on imports.
Secondly, due to the high energy consumption of urea production itself and the existence of shortages such as coal, China has imposed export controls on special raw materials for vehicle urea since October this year. According to the official website of the General Administration of Customs of China, the General Administration of Customs issued Announcement No. 81 on October 11 this year, saying that since October 15, 29 10-digit customs commodity numbers involved in the export of chemical fertilizers have been subject to customs supervision conditions "B", and customs has carried out export commodity inspections for related commodities, including urea (within the quota, whether aqueous or not). In fact, Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao published an article on November 4 that this means that urea exported from China must obtain an inspection and quarantine report issued by the Chinese National Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau before it can be cleared.
In fact, at the end of October, there were warnings in South Korea that the shortage of vehicle urea might begin, but it did not attract the attention of the government. The "urea crisis" in South Korea is not an accidental phenomenon. In Germany, another diesel car country, the situation is not optimistic, and the supply of vehicle urea is also facing a shortage. However, Germany does not need to import urea, and its domestic chemical companies can be self-sufficient.
However, the high cost of raw materials this year has caused many German chemical companies to gradually reduce production and even stop production of urea, so that the German Freight Transport Federation (BGL) issued a "urea warning" to the whole country, if the vehicle urea can not be supplied, it will lead to 90% of the freight vehicles can not be on the road.
However, it is not only export restrictions, natural gas accounts for a large proportion of vehicle urea production. According to the statistics of Treasure Island, in theory, the tonnage consumption of natural gas by urea enterprises is about 600 cubic meters, the price is raised by 0.1 yuan / cubic meter, and the theoretical cost of gas head urea enterprises will increase by 60 yuan / ton. This year's gas price increase will have a great impact on gas head urea production enterprises, and will affect fertilizer supply and crop planting. At present, China's natural gas to urea production capacity accounts for 28%.
Affected by the rise in gas prices, gas-headed urea enterprises such as Meifeng, Lutianhua and Yuntianhua have been greatly challenged by suspension of production or parking. At the same time, the environmental protection and production limit of the heating season are superimposed, and the domestic urea price further rises. In fact, from November to March every year, in order to ensure the heating needs of residents, gashead urea enterprises undertake the task of natural gas peak regulation, reduce production or stop. At present, the northern heating curtain is open, and gashead urea enterprises have gradually reduced production or stopped production. According to the data, as of November 25, the operating rate of 16 urea enterprises in the southwest region (with a total production capacity of 8.66 million tons) has dropped to 37%, and the operating rate of urea enterprises in the southwest has averaged 40%, and only Yuntianhua production is stable.
In fact, the urea production restriction effect brought about by multiple factors such as the rise in commodities and China's urea export restrictions is still fermenting, and the next step will affect the fertilizer industry. At present, there are reports that India, Thailand, the United States and other countries are in a fertilizer crisis. Among them, the cost of fertilizer per ton in Thailand is 6,000 baht more than last year, about 1100 yuan. Because the global price of urea has risen to $850 per ton, an increase of 227% compared with $260 a year ago, many American farmers are reluctant to grow corn that is highly dependent on fertilizers.
According to reports, in late October, in view of the current shortage of fertilizer supply, the central government of India allocated a total of 286.55 billion rupees (about 24.496 billion yuan) to fertilizer production subsidies to fertilizer production, requiring factories to guarantee production and sell fertilizer at a government subsidy price below the market price. According to reports, there is a shortage of fertilizer in many parts of India, and farmers have lined up overnight to buy, and some farmers have panicked, resulting in rushing, hoarding, and even theft. Some netizens commented, "It seems that the sequelae of energy shortages have emerged, and the risk of international food shortages has increased." ”
Analysts pointed out that with the increase in carbon emission requirements, the adoption of new energy will be more and more, but compared to traditional fossil energy such as coal, the price of new energy is often higher and unstable, and behind the urea time, more reflects the problem of energy transformation.