A chemical that sounds common, but has recently caused an uproar in South Korea, is urea.
According to the Financial Associated Press, South Korea recently discovered that China suddenly suspended the export of AdBlue solution to South Korea, which made South Korea feel extremely nervous, not only the relevant departments launched an emergency discussion meeting, South Korea also confirmed the situation with the Chinese side for the first time, wanting to know what happened.
After a variety of channels confirmed, South Korea now has good news and a bad news, the good news is that China's suspension of exports this time is not to target South Korea, but to give priority to meeting domestic demand and stabilize the domestic market;The bad news is that China has not said when it will resume exporting urea, but South Korea's current urea stocks are only enough for three months, and if China still does not resume exports after three months, then South Korea will be a little sweaty.
South Korea is nervous, there are two main reasons, on the one hand, South Korea is a large diesel car, like in China, the proportion of diesel vehicles may now be 1% to 3%, South Korea is different, the proportion of diesel vehicles in South Korea directly exceeds 38%, according to statistics, South Korea is still in operation of 26 million motor vehicles, diesel vehicles have nearly 10 million.
Compared with gasoline vehicles, diesel vehicles have the advantages of fuel saving, cheap, and low carbon emissions, which is also an important reason why South Korea chooses to develop diesel vehicles.
Urea is a necessity for the exhaust purification system of diesel vehicles, without which diesel vehicles cannot be started. In such a context, the urea in South Korea's inventory is only enough for 3 months, which is absolutely unacceptable to South Korea.
The second reason for South Korea's nervousness is naturally because South Korea's urea is almost entirely imported from China, and South Korea's industrial urea has 976% comes from China, which is also the world's largest producer and exporter of urea. At present, the international community is popular for diversified imports, in order to prevent over-dependence on one side and being stuck by the other side.
South Korea is so dependent on China, but the situation has not changed for so many years, which in itself speaks to the problem, and it is difficult for South Korea to change. Like this time, China met domestic demand and suspended the export of urea, and the relevant departments of South Korea urgently said that they would hold a meeting to discuss the response policy, but in the final analysis, it was also a fake busy work, because if it could solve the problem, South Korea would have already begun to solve it.
South Korea's embarrassing situation is also its own unwillingness to produce urea, and to buy urea from countries other than China, not only will it be insufficient, but theirs is also much higher than China.
The urea production process is not complicated, but the production cost of urea is very high, especially in South Korea, the country's natural resources are very limited, and in front of China, Russia and other coal or natural gas countries, South Korea's own urea is not competitive, South Korea has always believed that its own urea production is a loss-making business, far less cost-effective than importing from abroad.
And 976% of urea is imported from China, which shows that South Korea's current diesel vehicles are basically using Chinese urea, and urea imported from other countries is not only much higher, which will put pressure on South Korea's economy, but also does not necessarily meet the standards that South Korea has formulated, which will also bring potential safety hazards to South Korea's diesel vehicles.
So this basically forms a closed loop, it is difficult for South Korea to jump out, when China can resume exports, at present, it is obviously the focus of South Korea's attention.