SunSirs: Energy, Methanol Market Slowly Recovered (February 17-21)

Price Trend

According to the price monitoring of SunSirs, the domestic methanol market recovered slowly last week. At the beginning of the week, the average price of domestic methanol market was 1,985 RMB/ ton, and at the end of the week, it was 2,022 RMB/ ton, up 1.89% in the week, and the price fell 9.81% on a month on month basis, down 12.29% on a year-on-year basis.

Market Analysis

Products: the trading atmosphere of domestic methanol market has changed, and there is a significant volume of transactions. Last week, the mainland market as a whole showed a trend of stability first and then growth, price rose about 50-100 RMB/ ton; the trend of the port was more volatile, and Taicang, Fujian and other places rose 10-30 RMB/ ton. The methanol to olefin unit in Northwest China started to be upgraded, and phase II of Jiutai in Inner Mongolia and Baofeng in Ningxia recovered to full capacity production. The polypropylene is the raw material for face mask production. The inventory of two major ports in East China and South China continued to increase, with a total inventory of 930,200 tons, an increase of 14,100 tons compared with last week.

Industry chain: formaldehyde: last week, the domestic formaldehyde market is in a downturn. A small number of enterprises had resumed construction, many enterprises had construction plans, the upstream methanol market was in low-level operation, formaldehyde enterprises had small order replenishment actions, the downstream enterprises were still in low-level operation, the demand side was difficult to improve, and the overall transaction was light and hard to change.

Acetic acid: the domestic acetic acid market fell last week. After middle February, the restrictions on automobile transportation between regions were reduced, and the purchase of acetic acid in the downstream was no longer restricted by regions, resulting in the market transactions concentrated on low-end purchase. The northwest supply had successively impacted the North China market, resulting in the forced reduction of the local high price of North China by 100 RMB/ ton. Suppliers from Shandong and Henan competed in the East China market. Last week, the cumulative reduction of 100 RMB/ ton increased the market bearish mentality. However, the overall start-up of downstream industries is still low, and the substantial demand for acetic acid is difficult to grow, and the buying is mainly rational under the trend of acetic acid bearish. Although the acetic acid market has made profits, the volume is still low.

DME: the overall trading atmosphere of domestic DME Market was weak last week, and the price shows signs of decline. The overall operation of DME in China was about 7.03%, an increase of 6.19% over the previous week. Due to the current transportation still not recovered, the inventory removal of DME continues to be slow, and with the current recovery of enterprise construction, but under the influence of continuous poor traffic, the digestion of dimethyl ether is slow, and the price rise resistance is still large.

Market Forecast

From the perspective of SunSirs: on the positive side, the traditional downstream gradually recovers; the international device maintenance is centralized, and the import volume is expected to keep decreasing from February to March; the start-up of Northwest MTO device is improved, and the purchase volume of Inner Mongolia Jiutai and Ningxia Baofeng is increased. On the negative side, the situation of coal shortage in Northwest China has eased, and some units have been started up, such as Xinao and Rongxin in Inner Mongolia; the overall inventory of methanol plants in the mainland is on the high side; the port MTO units have been started down, Ningbo Fude has stopped, and Nanjing Chengzhi has a maintenance plan behind it. Downstream demand shows an increasing trend, dangerous chemicals gradually began to be transported, and the market transaction activity obviously indicated that the volume and price of some of them will rise together. However, considering the high inventory in the mainland and port, the space for the rise is limited. The methanol analysts of SunSirs predicted that the methanol market in China will show a strong trend this week.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact SunSirs with support@sunsirs.com .