High Purity Liquid Argon is a liquid argon with a purity equal to or above 99.999%, which is an inert rare gas and is often used as a protective gas in many fields such as stainless steel, metallurgy, machining, electronic semiconductors, aerospace, photovoltaic industry and so on. Stainless steel and photovoltaic industry is currently the main application area of high-purity liquid argon, its industry development will directly affect the market demand for high-purity liquid argon. 2017, China's stainless steel production of 25.8 million tons, an increase of 4.7% over the previous year, 2017 China's polysilicon production of 242,000 tons, an increase of 24.7% yoy, wafer production of 87GW, an increase of 34.3% yoy, the output of the battery sheet 68GW, an increase of 33.3% yoy, the output of the component 76GW, An increase of 31.7% year-on. The increase in the development speed of stainless steel and photovoltaic industry led to a significant increase in the demand growth rate of high purity liquid argon in China in 2017, reaching 9.7% and the demand of 533,100 tons, resulting inArgon priceIncreased significantly.

Argon prices have increased dramatically

Argon because of its small content in the air, the products are through the existing large air separation equipment (the main product is oxygen, nitrogen) attached to the acquisition. The main suppliers of air separation devices in China are Hangzhou Hangzhou Oxygen Co., Ltd., Kaifeng Air Separation Group Co., Ltd., Sichuan Air Separation Equipment (group) Limited liability company, etc. The device of air separation equipment will have a great influence on the production capacity of high purity liquid argon, and also cause the price elasticity space of high purity liquid argon is larger. 2013-2015, China's high-purity liquid argon products prices are relatively stable, in 2016-2017, by the steel industry to eliminate backward production capacity and downstream demand recovery and other factors, China's high-purity liquid argon prices quickly climbed.

According to the "2018-2022 China high purity liquid argon industry market monitoring and future development Prospects Research Report", 2017, China's high-purity liquid argon price of 3381 yuan/ton.

Under the dual factors of rising demand and rising prices, the market size of China's high-purity liquid argon industry doubled in 2017, and the price of argon increased from 923 million yuan in 2016 to 1.803 billion yuan.