Major Chinese MMA Producer Chongqing Yixiang Declares Force Majeure Over Feedstock Shortage

Chongqing Yixiang Chemical, one of China's largest producers of methyl methacrylate (MMA), declared force majeure at its MMA plant in the Changshou district of Chongqing on September 29, 2026, after a shortage of feedstock disrupted production. The declaration allows the company to reduce or suspend contractual deliveries while the raw material problem lasts.

The plant sits in the Changshou Economic and Technological Development Zone, one of the main chemical hubs of southwest China. Yixiang Chemical was founded in November 2017 as a subsidiary of Jiangsu Shuangxiang Group and invested about 4.5 billion yuan in a site designed for 450,000 tonnes per year of MMA, 60,000 tonnes of methacrylic acid and 80,000 tonnes of specialty methacrylate esters. The first phase started up in November 2019, and a second MMA line of 150,000 tonnes per year came on stream in the first half of 2024, placing the company among the biggest MMA makers in the country.

The site relies on the acetone cyanohydrin route, the most common way of making MMA. In this process, acetone is combined with hydrogen cyanide, and the resulting intermediate is then treated with sulfuric acid and methanol to obtain the final product, with ammonium sulphate as a by-product. Because the chain depends on several inputs arriving in the right quantities at the same time, a shortfall in a single raw material can quickly force a producer to cut rates or stop units.

MMA is a key building block for acrylic plastics. Its main use is polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), the clear plastic known as acrylic glass, which goes into signs, lighting covers, display panels, car light lenses and building panels. PMMA accounted for 57% of Chinese MMA consumption in 2023. The chemical is also used in paints and coatings, adhesives, resins and additives that make PVC pipes and profiles more resistant. Yixiang Chemical also sells abroad, with customs records showing MMA shipments to buyers in India, Canada and the United States.

The force majeure arrives just as the Asian MMA market was coming out of a period of tight supply. In China, Zhejiang Petrochemical took its Zhoushan unit offline for maintenance on August 20 and restarted it on September 15, removing around 7,500 tonnes of MMA per month from the market. Zibo Qixiang Tengda Chemical in Shandong province had already been in maintenance from August 1 to August 20. In Singapore, Sumitomo Chemical Asia ran its Jurong Island plant at a sharply reduced rate from August 1 and only returned to operations on September 25. Buyers were therefore only starting to see relief when the Chongqing plant ran into trouble.

The MMA market has been highly volatile throughout 2026. The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz after the February 28 strikes on Iran cut off feedstock flows to many Asian petrochemical plants and triggered a wave of force majeure declarations. Asian MMA prices jumped by 54% to 68% during March, and Chinese domestic prices rose so fast that some PMMA producers temporarily stopped issuing new quotations. The trend then reversed as demand weakened. Chinese MMA plants ran at about 56% of capacity in June, and domestic prices fell below 10,000 yuan per tonne in early July. By mid-September, several Asian petrochemical producers had still not formally lifted the force majeure declarations issued in the spring.

The large amount of idle MMA capacity in China should limit the risk of a severe domestic shortage, as other producers have room to raise their operating rates. However, losing output from one of the country's largest sites right after the August and September outages is likely to support prices in east China and to reduce the volume of spot cargoes available for export to India and Southeast Asia in October. Customers with contracts with Yixiang Chemical are expected to receive reduced allocations and may have to turn to other Chinese suppliers, to producers in South Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia, or to their own inventories.

As of September 29, 2026, the force majeure remains in place and no restart date has been announced. Market participants are now watching how quickly the feedstock supply can be restored in Chongqing and whether other Chinese producers increase output to fill the gap.