China Acetic Acid Market in 2026: Oversupply as the Main Trend, Industry Enters a Structural Adjustment Window

In 2025, China’s acetic acid industry continued its trend of capacity expansion, laying the foundation for the market pattern in 2026. As the world’s largest producer and consumer of acetic acid, China’s market in 2026 is expected to show a clear oversupply, with the industry entering a new development stage focused on structural optimization. On the supply side, new and expanded production facilities will be commissioned in a concentrated manner, ensuring sufficient market supply. On the demand side, although growth exists, it lags behind the pace of supply expansion, making an overall surplus situation for the year a certainty.

From the perspective of market dynamics, there is a temporal mismatch between the commissioning of new acetic acid capacity and downstream consumption growth, leading to significant fluctuations in the phased supply-demand balance. Overall, the market is expected to show a “stable in the early stage, loose in the later stage” monthly trend: during certain periods, supported by holiday stocking and the start-up of new facilities, supply and demand will remain basically balanced; in other months, the market will generally face oversupply pressure. In specific months, extreme weather or concentrated downstream maintenance may push inventory pressure to the annual peak. It should be noted that current market analysis is based on the facility construction plans at the end of 2025, and actual market trends may adjust depending on project progress, product profitability, and other factors.

The industry is also entering a new phase of structural optimization. Driven by dual-carbon policies, the transition to green and low-carbon production is accelerating, with significant growth in demand for high-end products. Leading enterprises, leveraging scale effects and technological advantages, continue to increase market concentration, while small and medium-sized enterprises face dual pressures from rising environmental costs and excess capacity. Against this backdrop, export markets have emerged as a key growth driver for the industry to absorb excess capacity, and the expansion of demand in emerging markets provides new support for industry growth. In 2026, competition in the acetic acid market will focus on technological upgrades, product high-endization, and overseas market expansion, with structural adjustment and transformation becoming key for enterprises to achieve breakthroughs.