April 20, 2026 Recently, the domestic silica industry has ushered in a multi-positive superposition development trend, with the gradual digestion of raw material cost pressure, the continuous increase in overseas demand, the acceleration of the high-end upgrading process of the industry, the overall operation of the market is stable and improving, and the structural optimization of the industrial chain continues to appear.

On the raw material side, the cost pressure caused by the sharp rise in the prices of core raw materials such as sulfuric acid and soda ash in the early stage gradually stabilized. Since the first quarter of this year, affected by global energy fluctuations and tight sulfur supply, the price of sulfuric acid has hit a new high in nearly 20 years, prompting a number of domestic silica companies to raise product prices by 500 yuan/ton in early April, and the cumulative increase in the industry has reached 800 yuan/ton in the early stage. As of April 20, the mainstream spot quotation of domestic precipitation silica stabilized at 6,300-7,000 yuan/ton, an increase of 12%-18% from the end of 2025.

The foreign trade market performed particularly well. With the acceleration of the resumption of work and production in the global downstream manufacturing industry, overseas orders continue to return, and China's silica exports have ushered in a rise in volume and price. Since April, the export orders of highly decentralized, food-grade, green and low-carbon special silica have increased by more than 20% year-on-year, Southeast Asia, Europe and the Middle East have become the core incremental markets, and the foreign trade production schedule of domestic leading enterprises has been scheduled to May.

At the level of industrial upgrading, the pace of industry intensification and green transformation has accelerated. In the middle of this month, the 2026 China Rubber Association Carbon Black and White Carbon Black Branch Industrial Development Conference was successfully held, focusing on production capacity optimization, environmental protection technological transformation, and coordinated development of upstream and downstream industrial chains, and clarifying the development direction of eliminating low-end backward production capacity and tackling the technical shortcomings of high-end products. At present, the total domestic silica production capacity exceeds 2.5 million tons/year, the industry operating rate is stable at about 75%, the structural contradiction of low-end homogeneous overcapacity and insufficient supply of high-end high-performance products is gradually alleviating, and the concentration of the industry's head continues to increase, with the market share of the top five enterprises exceeding 40%. At the same time, enterprises in various places continue to promote energy-saving technological transformation of production lines, replace old equipment with high energy consumption, comply with the new environmental protection regulations of the domestic chemical industry, and promote the whole industry to move towards green, low-carbon, specialized, special and new high-quality development.

Industry analysis pointed out that with the continuous release of emerging downstream demand such as new energy tires, high-end silicone rubber, and new energy materials, and the continuous expansion of the export market, the demand fundamentals of the domestic silica industry are stable; After the price of raw materials gradually returns to a reasonable range, the profit space of enterprises will be steadily repaired, and the industry will achieve structural growth around high-end, functional and green in the long term.