Price trend

Since October, domestic PTA spot prices have continued to decline. According to the SunSirs Commodity Market Analysis System, as of October 17th, the spot price of PTA in East China was 4,381 RMB/ton, a 4.65% decrease from the beginning of the month. Insufficient cost support, the commissioning of new facilities, and continued weak demand compounded these negative factors, leading to weak PTA prices.

Analysis review

Crude oil prices were declining. As of the 16th, the December settlement price of the US WTI crude oil futures contract was $56.99 per barrel, and the December settlement price of the Brent crude oil futures contract was $61.06 per barrel. The crude oil market was impacted by negative factors. On the one hand, OPEC+ launched a new round of production increases of 1.65 million barrels per day, but the market remained concerned about the risk of long-term oversupply, and the crude oil market continued to decline. On the other hand, the easing of the Israeli-Palestinian tension, coupled with weakening US demand and the impact of US tariffs on the global economy and demand expectations, coupled with rising US crude oil inventories and the end of the US oil consumption season, had led to a gloomy global economic outlook and oil demand, leading to a rapid decline in international oil prices.

Regarding its own facilities, Yisheng Ningbo's 2.2 million ton PTA unit No. 2 reduced its capacity to around 80% on October 17th for unspecified reasons. Hengli Petrochemical's 2.2 million ton unit No. 1 was shut down on October 9th. Yisheng New Materials' 3.6 million ton PTA unit No. 2 also reduced its capacity on October 7th and resumed operation on October 14th. Hailun Petrochemical's new 3.2 million ton unit began trial production at the end of July and has been continuously increasing its capacity to 80%-90%. The overall industry utilization rate was around 75%.

On the demand side, the downstream polyester industry was seeing some restarts to increase capacity, as well as the restart of long-shut plants, but the rate of capacity increase wasn slow, remaining around 87%. In the end-use apparel and home textile industries, consumer sentiment was growing as the e-commerce shopping festival approaches, but weaving companies were still seeing limited new and follow-up orders, resulting in lukewarm performance. The overall operating rate of chemical fiber weaving in Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions was around 64%.

Market outlook

Analysts at SunSirs believe that uncertainties such as tariffs remained, dampening commodity market sentiment. The combination of loose supply and subdued demand in the crude oil market was weighing on the market. Furthermore, downstream confidence was low, with purchasing activity modest. The PTA market lacks further momentum, and prices will still mainly fluctuate weakly.

If you have any inquiries or purchasing needs, please feel free to contact SunSirs with support@sunsirs.com.