(Shanghai, April 18, 2026)Entering the second quarter of 2026, China’s white carbon black (silicon dioxide) market has maintained a high-price, booming production and sales trend driven by a sharp surge in raw material costs and strong high-end demand. According to the latest monitoring data from SunSirs, the benchmark market price of precipitated white carbon black stood at 6,066.67 yuan per ton on April 13, unchanged from the start of the month. Mainstream offers for silicone rubber-grade products ranged from 6,800 to 8,000 yuan per ton, while high-end fumed white carbon black was quoted as high as 16,000 to 32,000 yuan per ton. The industry has shown a structural divergence characterized by “stable prices for standard grades, price hikes for high-end models, and strong popularity of green and low-carbon products”.

Soaring Raw Materials Trigger Collective Price Adjustments, Industry Under Pressure to Recover Losses

The core driver of the current market rally is the “epic surge” in upstream raw material prices. Affected by multiple factors including tight sulfur supply due to geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East, concentrated overhauls of production facilities in major domestic production regions, and robust inelastic downstream demand, the price of sulfuric acid — a key raw material for white carbon black — has soared since the beginning of the year. As of March 31, the benchmark market price of sulfuric acid reached 1,580 yuan per ton, a 49.41% increase from early March, hitting a 20-year high. Rapidly transmitted cost pressures forced domestic white carbon black producers to launch a new round of collective price increases in early April. Starting April 2, several leading enterprises in major production hubs including Fujian, Shandong, and Jiangxi issued price adjustment notices, announcing a unified increase of 500 yuan per ton across their full product lines. Combined with the first round of price hikes in early March, the industry has raised prices by a total of 800 yuan per ton. Even so, industry insiders noted that the adjustments still cannot fully cover the skyrocketing production costs, leaving most firms in a “passive loss-recovering” state with severely squeezed profit margins.

Surge in High-End Demand, Explosive Export Orders, Accelerated Domestic Substitution

In contrast to the cost pressures facing standard products, highly dispersible, food-grade, and green low-carbon white carbon black products have seen severe supply shortages and strong demand in April. The rapid development of downstream sectors such as new energy tires, power batteries, high-performance silicone rubber, food and pharmaceuticals has raised stricter requirements for the purity, dispersibility, and environmental performance of white carbon black. The high-end white carbon black market, long dependent on imports, is now entering a phase of accelerated domestic substitution. Latest customs data showed that export orders for China’s high-end white carbon black products have increased by more than 20% year-on-year since April, mainly destined for Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Growing international recognition of Chinese products labeled “green manufacturing” has become a new engine driving exports. Meanwhile, leading domestic enterprises are increasing R&D investment, making continuous breakthroughs in key technologies including precise particle size control, surface modification, and green processes, gradually breaking the monopoly of international giants in the high-end market.

Green and Low-Carbon Transition Becomes Industry Consensus, New Projects Launched Intensively

Faced with dual pressures from tightened environmental policies and the international Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), green and low-carbon development has become an inevitable direction for the transformation of the white carbon black industry. From April 13 to 15, the 2026 Special Rubber Raw Materials Industry Development Conference was held in Hebi, Henan, where industry elites gathered and set “Green Innovation · Chain Synergy” as the annual theme to discuss pathways for high-quality industrial development. Driven by both policy and market forces, a number of green, low-carbon, and high-tech white carbon black projects have been publicized or launched intensively in April.

• Changle, Shandong: The 200,000-ton-per-year CO₂ acidification white carbon black project (Phase I), invested by Zhongke Fuqing with 1.02 billion yuan, has entered the environmental impact assessment public notice phase. Compared with the traditional sulfuric acid process, this technology significantly reduces carbon emissions and pollution, representing the mainstream technical direction of the industry in the future.
• Anhui: Quecheng Co., Ltd. announced stable mass production and supply from its rice husk-based white carbon black production base. Using rice husk agricultural waste as a silicon source, this project is a typical biomass circular economy initiative that fully aligns with international green procurement standards.

Jiangsu, Shandong and other provinces have successively issued policies to explicitly restrict and phase out outdated production capacity, while encouraging advanced processes such as fumed production and CO₂ acidification. Supply-side reform in the industry continues to deepen, with low-end capacity being phased out rapidly to make room for high-quality production.

Market Outlook: Deepening Divergence, Victory for High-End and Green Players

Looking ahead, analysts believe sulfuric acid and other raw material prices will remain high in the short term, providing strong cost support. The “high-low divergence” in the white carbon black market will intensify: low-end capacity will suffer from oversupply, fierce competition, and thin profits, while high-value-added products including highly dispersible, green low-carbon, and specialty grades will continue to see rising volumes and prices, becoming the core pillar of corporate profitability. For industry players, only by increasing technological innovation, optimizing product portfolios, and promoting green production can they build core competitiveness in this round of industrial transformation and achieve a successful shift from “scale expansion” to “high-quality development”.