Softening trend prevails in China’s PP, PE markets
by ChemOrbis Editorial Team - content@chemorbis.com
In China, local PP and PE prices continued to witness some reductions in the recent days due to high supply levels, the low season for the manufacturing sector and softening futures. Local prices had turned soft last week after a short-lived recovery of the previous two weeks.
LLDPE futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange recorded a cumulative decrease of around $26/ton in the first two days of the week.
Players reported that most buyers still prefer to secure their needs from the local market despite the fact that import prices have decreased further recently as a few overseas suppliers elected to revise their offers down to China in the face of plunging ethylene prices.
A Chinese trader commented, “Prices are moving lower in the local market while the number of done deals is very limited. Demand is weakening in line with the end of the high season while we heard that supply levels of CNPC and Sinopec are at around 900,000 tons, which is pretty high. On top of that, futures prices are softening. We are focusing on the local market nowadays as it attracts more buyers when compared to imports.”
A Shanghai-based trader noted, “We have given up purchasing Iranian materials as the bank didn’t approve the letters of credit. We were planning to buy a large amount of PE, which would be too risky to pay cash. Inside China, the downtrend for both PP and PE remains in place this week mostly due to weak demand. We are not expecting to see any recovery in the near term given the ongoing bearish factors.”
According to ChemOrbis Price Wizard, local prices have been down by an equivalence of $30/ton for LLDPE and $40/ton for HDPE film and homo PP in the past two weeks.
LLDPE futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange recorded a cumulative decrease of around $26/ton in the first two days of the week.
Players reported that most buyers still prefer to secure their needs from the local market despite the fact that import prices have decreased further recently as a few overseas suppliers elected to revise their offers down to China in the face of plunging ethylene prices.
A Chinese trader commented, “Prices are moving lower in the local market while the number of done deals is very limited. Demand is weakening in line with the end of the high season while we heard that supply levels of CNPC and Sinopec are at around 900,000 tons, which is pretty high. On top of that, futures prices are softening. We are focusing on the local market nowadays as it attracts more buyers when compared to imports.”
A Shanghai-based trader noted, “We have given up purchasing Iranian materials as the bank didn’t approve the letters of credit. We were planning to buy a large amount of PE, which would be too risky to pay cash. Inside China, the downtrend for both PP and PE remains in place this week mostly due to weak demand. We are not expecting to see any recovery in the near term given the ongoing bearish factors.”
According to ChemOrbis Price Wizard, local prices have been down by an equivalence of $30/ton for LLDPE and $40/ton for HDPE film and homo PP in the past two weeks.
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