- Lowest local offers captured at VND20,000,000/ton ($843/ton)
- Leading Taiwanese PVC producer postponed April shipment offers announcement
- Outlook is cautiously pessimistic
SSESSMENTS.COM’s data showed that Vietnam saw an overall hike in local PVC prices during the first half of March. On the week commencing March 2, a local producer announced March delivery offers to the market with an increase of VND200,000/ton ($8/ton) as compared to February. Moving to the second week of March, most local producers have sold out March delivery allocation with transactions successfully concluded at the initial offer level or between VND21,600,000-22,000,000/ton ($910-927/ton) on cash, FD Vietnam basis and excluding 10% VAT. In the week commencing March 23, most producers applied a hefty discount of VND1,000,000/ton ($42/ton) on local ethylene-based PVC cargoes for April deliveries as compared to March. The downtrend in the global market was cited as a factor pushing the producers to lower their offers.
Likewise, in the import market, SSESSMENTS.COM was informed that import PVC prices showed a mixed trend in March. On the week ending March 6, a global trading house opted for a price increase of between $5-10/ton on Chinese cargoes as compared to a fortnight ago. In the following week, the leading Taiwanese PVC producer made a decision to postpone April shipment offers announcement to all markets as oil prices plunged to multi-year lows on March 9 following the escalation in tensions between Saudi Arabia and Russia. On the week ending March 20, import offers for Taiwanese PVC cargoes via a trader were available at $800/ton for a big volume of purchases, or at $50/ton lower than the offer level available in the previous week. Transactions were successfully concluded at the initial offer level as the offers were deemed attractive. In the final week of March, a regional trader managed to sell the cargoes to Vietnamese traders below $800/ton-level, at $780/ton or $40/ton lower than the initial offer level from the leading Indonesian PVC producer. All import offers are on LC at sight, CIF Vietnam Main Port basis.
In general, demand in Vietnam’s PVC market exhibited a mixed performance in March. In the first half of the month, the biggest drop in crude oil prices has sent shockwaves through global markets, yet the Vietnam PVC market has not seen a significant impact as most producers still managed to sell some volumes to the market. For March delivery, local producers claimed that sales to the southern part of the country remain satisfactory, while sales to the northern region are slightly lower. However, in the second half of the month, the overall buying sentiment remained sluggish, weighed down by market players' concern over the Coronavirus outbreak and the downtrend in crude oil prices which have led to rising uncertainties and pushed the market into a slowdown. On the production front, AGC Chemicals Vietnam plans to reschedule maintenance shutdown at its PVC plant as the company is facing massive manpower shortage amid the Coronavirus outbreak. Previously, the plant with a capacity of 150,000 tons/year was planned to shut from March 26 until April 10 for maintenance purposes. On the supply front, the availability of PVC materials in the market remains sufficient during the month.
For the outlook, the majority of Vietnamese market players voiced out to SSESSMENTS.COM that the PVC prices and market movements will highly depend on the upstream market.
