IOL Fluorochemical Weekly Report: Refrigerant Prices Stabilize at High Levels, Fluorinated Polymer Inventories Decline Significantly

Refrigerant: Pre-holiday trading volume declines, prices consolidate at high levels
This week, the refrigerant market maintained a conservative sales atmosphere, with prices fluctuating at high levels. Weekly market characteristics: As the Spring Festival holiday approached, industry operating rates remained low, with some factories planning shutdowns during the holiday. Despite overall weak transaction activity, procurement was primarily driven by rigid demand, while factories held back supplies and pushed prices upward. Upstream raw material markets experienced consolidation, with prices fluctuating narrowly. On the demand side, in the long term, the steady development of key downstream sectors such as air conditioning, automotive, and cold chain logistics provided solid support for refrigerant demand. Additionally, the explosive growth in refrigerant demand from emerging fields like AI liquid cooling will further benefit the market. However, in the short term, construction and equipment installation projects were suspended during the Spring Festival, leading to a temporary cooling in demand. Only minor imports from overseas A5 countries were released, offering weak support to the market. It is expected that after the Spring Festival holiday, the refrigerant market will gradually enter a recovery phase, with an overall trend of "demand rebound, supply restoration, and slight price increases.".

Fluorinated polymers: Factories reduce production capacity, market inventory declines significantly
This week, the fluoropolymer market saw factories simultaneously reducing production loads at year-end and clearing inventory sales, with mainstream products maintaining stable shipments to digest earlier price increases. On the cost side, upstream raw materials and monomer products remained steady, providing solid cost support for the entire PVDF, PTFE, and FEP product series. On the supply side, leading factories maintained production during the Spring Festival by reducing output loads, while only a handful of companies halted operations for maintenance, which helped alleviate supply-demand pressure. On the demand side, traditional sectors such as chemical corrosion prevention, automotive and transportation, machinery and industrial manufacturing, and national defense remained stable, while demand in emerging areas like new energy, semiconductors, healthcare, aerospace, environmental engineering, AI, and data centers showed limited short-term growth in actual orders. By product category, mainstream product factory quotations remained firm, and prices were expected to stay at current levels temporarily around the Spring Festival period.

Weekly news

01Jiangxi Xingfu High end Fluorinated Refrigerant and Fine Chemicals Project Announcement
Recently, the Department of Ecology and Environment of Jiangxi Province issued a notice to publicize the second phase project of Jiangxi Xingfu Zhonglan New Material Production. The project has a construction investment of approximately 464.4758 million yuan and is located within the existing factory area of Jiangxi Xingfu Zhonglan New Materials Co., Ltd. After the completion of this project, the production capacity will be expanded by 45000 tons/year of R152a to a total of 70000 tons/year, 3000 tons of acetylene (sold products), 100000 tons of calcium chloride, 260 tons of TFEA, 800 tons of ETFBO, 800 tons of TFAA, as well as 800 tons of MTP, 1000 tons of R161, 6000 tons of R240fa to a total production capacity of 8000 tons, and 9 tons of PDD to a total production capacity of 10 tons.

02The United States initiates its first anti-dumping sunset review of R32 against China
On February 2, 2026, the US Department of Commerce issued a notice initiating the first anti-dumping sunset review investigation on imported difluoromethane (R-32) from China. At the same time, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) has initiated the first anti-dumping sunset review industry injury investigation on the above-mentioned products, examining whether the substantial damage caused by the import of the products in question to the US domestic industry will continue or occur again within a reasonable foreseeable period if the current anti-dumping measures are lifted.

03Arkema partners with Star Source Materials to accelerate the research and development of next-generation battery materials
Arkema, a global leader in specialty materials, and Senior, a global leader in battery separator technology, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to further deepen their long-term strategic cooperation and jointly promote comprehensive innovation in the battery value chain. According to this strategic cooperation agreement, Arkema and Xingyuan Materials will deepen their technical, commercial, and application level cooperation around Arkema's existing and future battery material product portfolio, as well as Xingyuan Materials' advanced separator technology and industrialization capabilities. The core areas of cooperation include advanced bonding technology, precision electrode coating process, low-temperature cell assembly, and cutting-edge semi-solid battery manufacturing technology.

04Hanjianheshan plans to cross over and acquire Xingfu New Materials
On the evening of February 3rd, Han Jianhe Mountain released a plan to issue shares and pay cash to purchase assets, raise matching funds, and engage in related party transactions. The plan is to enter the high-performance new materials track through cross-border mergers and acquisitions of Liaoning Xingfu New Materials Co., Ltd. (Xingfu New Materials), cultivating new profit growth points for the company. It is reported that Xingfu New Materials has established a complete industrial chain from chemical basic raw materials to fluoroketone (DFBP). Its core products include PEEK (polyetheretherketone) intermediates, pesticides, and pharmaceutical intermediates, which are widely used in various fields such as automotive manufacturing, aerospace, healthcare, energy, etc. It is a core supplier to major global PEEK manufacturers such as Vickers in the UK and Solvay in Belgium.