Recently, the PTA market has been operating in a volatile manner, with limited market price increases and decreases. The overall market trading atmosphere is light. Polyester factory bids are mostly due to hard demand. Trading among traders is dominated by transactions, and the basis is weak and stable. However, as of October 27, the spot price of PAT in the East China market was 5,265 yuan/ton, which was a decrease of 60 yuan/ton, or -1.13%, from the spot market price on October 8 at the beginning of the month.
From the perspective of the upstream crude oil market, structural tensions in energy supply have continued to drive oil prices up recently. Attack, the market is worried that inventories at the Cushing crude oil delivery site in the United States will further tighten below the warning line, and institutions continue to be bullish on forward oil prices. During the week, European and American crude oil futures prices once again set a multi-year high, but the market’s concerns about global economic growth have intensified. Risk appetite fell, investors took profits and the resumption of negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal was negative for market sentiment. European and American crude oil fell sharply in the afternoon on October 27, providing weak support to the PTA market. From the perspective of direct raw material PX, the second phase of Zhejiang Petrochemical has been approved to import crude oil quota of 12 million tons. The spot flow of PX is relatively loose. The profits of PX production companies are not good, and the start of production is expected to be narrowed. Recently, the price of PX has been operating in a narrow range, with limited rises and falls. , which has general support for the PTA market.
From the perspective of PTA’s own supply, with the restart of maintenance equipment such as Honggang, Tongkun, Hengli and Yangzi Petrochemical in the early stage, PTA’s operation once rose to more than 80%, and subsequently Hengli 3# unit has a maintenance plan, but a clear maintenance time has not yet been announced; Sichuan Energy Investment’s 1 million tons unit has been shut down for maintenance due to steam failure, and the restart time is to be determined. The overall PTA market is well supplied and the supply is somewhat exhausted. Under the maintenance plan, Hengli Petrochemical has reduced the November contract supply to 70%, and the PTA supply is insufficient to face the positive boost from rising prices.
From the perspective of downstream demand, the impact of the recent power cuts still exists, the start-up of polyester has not increased significantly, the start-up of terminal textile enterprises remains low, the inventory of raw materials is sufficient, and consumption is relatively slow. Amidst the fluctuations in the trend of polyester raw materials, purchasing sentiment is not good, short-term polyester production and sales continue to be weak, and the overall mentality is cautious and wait-and-see. It can be seen that the transmission of PTA to the downstream is still not smooth.
On the whole, although the ups and downs of crude oil have limited support for the PTA market, the performance of raw material PX is average, the PAT processing fee is still above 700 yuan/ton, and the supply and demand of PAT itself are weak. Inventories have accumulated slightly, and downstream demand is still weak. Under the long-short game, the PTA market is expected to fluctuate in a narrow range in the short term. We need to pay attention to the trend of international oil prices, the maintenance of PTA equipment, and whether downstream demand improves. </p
