China’s imports of Iranian HD, LD and LLDPE slump in H1

According to data from ChemOrbis Import Statistics, China’s cumulative HDPE and LDPE imports in the first half of the year were at a record high since ChemOrbis began keeping records in 2001. However, the market share of Iranian HDPE and LDPE diminished over the same period, with players citing the payment issues at Chinese banks as the main reason behind it.

Data suggests that China imported a total of 603,851 tons of HDPE from Iran in the January-June period of 2017, down by around 12% when compared to the same period of last year. Iran was the top HDPE supplier of China in the first four months of 2017, yet it lost its place to Saudi Arabia in May and June.

Imports of Iranian LDPE, meanwhile, showed its weakest monthly performance of 2017 in June, decreasing by around 34% from a month earlier to reach 30,745 tons. In the first half of the year, China’s cumulative LDPE imports from Iran fell to 269,906 tons, down 5.2% on a yearly basis.

As for LLDPE, imports from Iran were mostly unchanged on the year while they were up by 8% from a month earlier in June to reach 11,309 tons. In the first half of the year, on the other hand, China’s cumulative LLDPE imports from Iran were down by around 21%, standing at 65,836 tons.

Looking at China’s overall polymer imports in June, Iran was not able to rank among the top five suppliers for the first time this year with a total of 117,070 tons of polymers, the lowest monthly figure since November 2016. Iran mainly exports PE to China while its share is quite thin in other polymers.

The top five polymer exporters to China in June were Saudi Arabia (217,477 tons), Taiwan (218,956 tons), South Korea (209,399 tons), the United Arab Emirates (132,787 tons) and Singapore (121,468 tons).