China is a maritime power with over 18000 kilometers of coastline, abundant marine resources, and a thriving marine industry. However, the marine environment is extremely harsh and highly corrosive. Marine corrosion and protection will be an important issue that urgently needs to be addressed in China's economic development. In the process of ship construction, the cost of coatings is second only to steel plates, and the market is broad. With the rise of China's shipbuilding industry, the development prospects of marine anti-corrosion and anti fouling coatings are increasingly favored by more and more businesses.
1. Current situation of China's marine anti-corrosion coating market
The two basic series products of marine coatings are marine anti fouling coatings and marine anti-corrosion coatings. According to the different materials and corrosion mechanisms of anti-corrosion objects, marine anti-corrosion coatings can be divided into marine steel structure anti-corrosion coatings and non steel structure anti-corrosion coatings. Marine steel structure anti-corrosion coatings mainly include ship coatings, container coatings, anti-corrosion coatings for large facilities such as offshore bridges and dock steel facilities, oil pipelines, and offshore platforms. Non steel structure marine anti-corrosion coatings mainly include marine concrete structure anti-corrosion coatings and other anti-corrosion coatings.
The development of marine anti-corrosion and anti fouling coatings in China has been going through two generations of hard work since the "4.18" ship coating research and development. Currently, some varieties of marine anti-corrosion and anti fouling coatings have been developed, mainly concentrated in several paint factories such as Qingdao, Shanghai, Dalian, Tianjin, Changzhou, Guangzhou, and Xiamen. In recent years, although quality management and supervision institutions such as the China Shipbuilding Industry Shipbuilding Coatings Xiamen Inspection Station and the Marine Coatings Product Quality Supervision Center have been established, the overall technical level still lags behind advanced countries. At present, the marine anti-corrosion coating market in China is showing a highly competitive situation, with joint ventures or wholly-owned enterprises of major foreign coating companies almost occupying the main market of marine coatings in China. In the field of marine anti-corrosion and anti fouling coatings for ships, the top ten global ship coating companies have all entered China and established production bases since 2003.
2. New opportunities in the marine anti-corrosion coating market
According to authoritative institutions, it is predicted that the demand for protective coatings for offshore oil and gas drilling equipment will have a high growth rate in recent years, with Asia expected to have the largest growth rate. At the same time, due to 80% to 90% of global ship and container production being completed in Asia, the anti-corrosion coating market in Asia, especially in China, will experience rapid growth. The editor believes that the following factors will drive the rapid growth of marine anti-corrosion coatings in China.
(1) Shipbuilding and container manufacturing industry
In the mid-1980s to 1990s, as a labor-intensive industry, containers were transferred from Japan to South Korea and further to China. By the end of the 1990s, China had already occupied over 90% of the market share. At the same time, the global shipbuilding and repair industry has completed its transfer to East Asia. At present, East Asia accounts for over 80% of the world shipbuilding market share, with South Korea and Japan accounting for 30% to 35%, and China accounting for 8% to 10%. As the third largest shipbuilding country, there are 8 new shipbuilding enterprises in China that have taken on ship orders with a load capacity of over one million tons. Although China's shipbuilding industry has been plagued by steel prices in recent years, it has maintained rapid growth overall. In 2010, China will catch up with or surpass South Korea and Japan, becoming the world's largest shipbuilding country.
The cost of coatings in shipbuilding is second only to steel plates, and with the changes in the shipbuilding market, the corresponding production of ship coatings is also shifting to China. The domestic market for ship coatings has vast potential.
(2) The construction of a cross sea bridge
With the continuous expansion of marine development scale, cross sea bridges and coastal bridges, which serve as the infrastructure for marine development, will continue to be built. These marine structures require a long anti-corrosion period, which will bring a huge market for marine anti-corrosion coatings.
(3) Construction of offshore oil platforms and subsea pipelines
The main purpose of submarine pipelines is to transport oil and gas resources extracted from the seabed to land through pipelines, or to discharge sewage into the sea through pipelines in coastal cities and coastal factories. At present, there are not many underwater pipelines in China, but it is expected that the development speed will be very fast in the future. With the extensive development of underwater oil fields, pipelines for transporting oil and gas will also emerge one after another.
(4) The construction of coastal ports
At present, China is undergoing large-scale port construction. It is expected that in the next 5-10 years, China will invest 30 billion to 40 billion yuan annually in coastal port construction, which will bring a market of billions of yuan for marine anti-corrosion coatings and effectively stimulate the rapid growth of the marine anti-corrosion coating market.
3. Conclusion
In summary, China's paint market is in a period of rapid growth, and marine anti-corrosion coatings, as an important component of the paint market, are also in a period of rapid growth. Driven by factors such as shipbuilding and container manufacturing, as well as the construction of cross sea bridges, offshore oil platforms, and coastal ports, they will maintain an annual growth rate of over 30%.
In the past, anti-corrosion coatings in our country mainly focused on rust prevention, oil resistance, and temperature resistance, with strong specificity. With the development of anti-corrosion technology, marine anti-corrosion coatings are easy to apply, have good coloring properties, strong adaptability, are not limited by equipment structure and shape, are easy to repaint and repair, have low costs, and can be used in conjunction with other anti-corrosion measures, which have attracted more attention from people. China's marine anti-corrosion coatings are developing towards the trend of developing green, environmentally friendly, resource saving, and high-performance anti-corrosion coatings.
