The Middle East conflict has impacted the global chemical supply chain, widening the supply and demand gap for methanol and strontium carbonate, highlighting opportunities for domestic substitution

At the end of February 2026, the conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran escalated, and Iran announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz (a shipping channel for over 60% of global chemical raw materials), causing severe disruptions in the global chemical supply chain. As the world's second largest methanol producer (accounting for 9.2% of global production capacity) and the largest exporter of lapis lazuli (accounting for 32.1% of global reserves), Iran's production facilities and export channels are blocked, directly leading to the interruption of the supply of key chemicals such as methanol, lapis lazuli, and urea. As the main importer of Iranian chemicals, China relies on Iran for 55% -60% of methanol imports and 60% -70% of lapis lazuli imports. In the short term, the prices of related raw materials are expected to rise by 20% -30%, and some traders have already experienced stockpiling.

Methanol, as a basic chemical raw material, is widely used in fields such as plastics, coatings, and new energy. Its supply shortage will be directly transmitted to downstream industrial chains; As the core raw material of strontium carbonate, lapis lazuli is a key material for high-end manufacturing such as permanent magnet motors and electronic ceramics. China's strontium carbonate production capacity accounts for 65% of the world's total, but the weakness of relying on imported raw materials is highlighted. This situation has brought significant opportunities for domestic production capacity leaders to replace domestic products. The leading domestic methanol production enterprises with an annual capacity of 5.9 million tons have received a large number of replacement orders, and the lapis lazuli mining enterprises in Xinjiang, Shandong and other places have also accelerated their expansion of production. For foreign trade enterprises, it is necessary to quickly adjust their supply chain layout: on the one hand, establish long-term cooperation with domestic production capacity leaders to ensure stable supply of raw materials; On the other hand, it can expand alternative import channels such as Southeast Asia and South America, reducing the risk of a single source. At the same time, price fluctuations caused by geopolitical conflicts also require companies to optimize their pricing mechanisms and use methods such as "lock up agreements" and "tiered pricing" to hedge against rising cost pressures.

At the end of February 2026, the conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran escalated, and Iran announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz (a shipping channel for over 60% of global chemical raw materials), causing severe disruptions in the global chemical supply chain. As the world's second largest methanol producer (accounting for 9.2% of global production capacity) and the largest exporter of lapis lazuli (accounting for 32.1% of global reserves), Iran's production facilities and export channels are blocked, directly leading to the interruption of the supply of key chemicals such as methanol, lapis lazuli, and urea. As the main importer of Iranian chemicals, China relies on Iran for 55% -60% of methanol imports and 60% -70% of lapis lazuli imports. In the short term, the prices of related raw materials are expected to rise by 20% -30%, and some traders have already experienced stockpiling.