Analysis of the Prosperity of the Rubber Additives Industry in the Second Half of 2026: Bulk Varieties Under Supply Pressure, Demand for High-Performance Antioxidants and Specialty Additives Relatively Firm

Entering the second half of 2026, China’s rubber additives industry as a whole presents a pattern of “stable total volume, structural differentiation.” Based on the judgment of mid-term data by several industry institutions, the overcapacity problem of bulk general-purpose additives has not yet been fully digested, while specialty additive varieties represented by high-performance antioxidants and insoluble sulfur have relatively balanced supply and demand, or even show阶段性 tightness. The market performance of the two categories shows obvious differentiation.

I. Overall Supply and Demand Pattern of the Industry
New capacity concentratedly released from 2023 to 2025 is still in the ramp-up and digestion stage in 2026. Although leading enterprises have proactively controlled the pace of new commissioning, the industry’s overall nominal capacity is still higher than actual effective demand, and destocking pressure continues.

From the demand side, rubber additive consumption is highly linked to downstream rubber consumption, and its growth center is mainly determined by tire output and motor vehicle ownership growth. The China Rubber Industry Association expects the rubber industry output value growth rate to remain at around 3% for the whole of 2026. Total growth space is limited, and jump-style demand release is unlikely. The overall industry prosperity center is unlikely to rise significantly.

II. Obvious Differentiation Among Varieties
The core contradiction in supply-demand projection lies in structural mismatch: overcapacity is more prominent in bulk general-purpose additives such as accelerators M, DM, CZ, and antioxidants 4020, RD, while varieties represented by insoluble sulfur, specialty accelerators, and high-performance antioxidants have relatively balanced or even tight supply and demand. This differentiation leads to slow average inventory depletion in the industry, but significant differences in inventory turnover among sub-varieties.

For aromatic amine high-performance antioxidant varieties, because their synthesis process requirements are relatively high and raw material control is refined, they mainly serve the formula needs of high-end rubber products such as high-performance tires and rubber parts for aviation and engineering machinery. Against the background of intensifying competition in general-purpose additives, they have instead maintained relatively good price support through differentiated competitive advantages.

III. Analysis of Cost-Side Transmission Mechanism
Raw material price fluctuations are one of the key variables affecting the profitability of the additives industry in the second half of the year. If prices of basic chemical raw materials such as benzene and aniline rebound in the second half of the year along with crude oil prices, the overall cost center of additive production will be pushed up. Under a weak recovery pattern in downstream demand, enterprises face two-way squeeze from costs and selling prices. At present, all links in the industrial chain are paying close attention to crude oil and benzene-series raw material price trends, and some enterprises have appropriately adjusted raw material inventory strategies to reduce price fluctuation risks.

IV. New Policy Environment Developments
In August 2026, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment clearly stopped handling environmental management filing for new chemical substances, requiring enterprises and institutions that previously met filing conditions to instead submit registration applications. The government service system has added an independent “registration application” entry and adjusted requirements for applicants, single-substance declaration, use information reporting, and identification information protection. The above policy adjustments further raise the compliance threshold for new chemical substances entering the market and place higher requirements on R&D compliance management of chemical enterprises. The competitive barrier of existing compliant products is expected to rise relatively, and leading enterprises operating in a standardized manner will benefit.

V. Impact Assessment on Pretychem’s Product Line
The core products of Hubei Pretychem Chemical Technology Co., Ltd., including diphenylamine (DPA), antioxidant KY-405, and phenothiazine (PTZ), are all high-value-added fine chemical categories and have obvious product positioning advantages under the industry’s overall differentiation pattern. Among them, KY-405, as a high-molecular-weight aromatic amine high-end antioxidant, forms differentiated competition with general-purpose antioxidants, and market demand is relatively stable; PTZ is irreplaceable in the field of acrylic acid and styrene monomer inhibition; DPA has strong rigid demand in the fields of rubber anti-aging and aviation hydraulic oil additives. Overall, the company’s product structure fits the current industry prosperity differentiation main line of “specialty additives superior to bulk varieties,” and the overall operating situation is supported.