Turkey’s import PP prices trade below China first time since Jan

Import homo PP prices in Turkey and China have moved in opposite directions since early October as the Chinese market followed a stable to slightly firmer trend up until recently whereas the Turkish market was under pressure from weak demand and excessive stocks.

As can be seen in the below graph formed by ChemOrbis Price Wizard, Turkey’s PP market has started to trade below China for the first time since January after gradually falling and losing its premium over China since early October.



Considering the netback calculations based on China, steep declines are not found healthy in Turkey even though demand continues to create a downward pressure.

Accordingly, some players are concerned that negative netbacks might prompt importers to divert their allocations to other global markets. A distributor noted, “Looking at China, Turkey’s PP market should not move down further. Supplies might tighten if import allocations become less and inland stocks diminish.”

A buyer also commented, “We don’t expect major drops as PP prices are already below China. We plan to buy limited quotas even though we are not in urgent need of material to make sure that we will be covered when supplies start to tighten.”

On the other hand, converters holding comfortable stocks prefer to wait for further decreases as they do not expect major changes in market dynamics.

Although theoretical netback calculations suggest that there is no room for further decreases in Turkey’s PP market as it should carry a premium over China under balanced market conditions, the two markets might not come back into balance immediately. As can be seen from the graph above, this was exactly the case between Turkey and China in the last quarter of 2016, when Turkey traded well below China for at least three months.