A Middle Eastern PE producer reported to SSESSMENTS.COM on adjusting April shipment PE offers to China and Southeast Asia market. To Southeast Asia market, the offers for HDPE Film dropped by $30/ton as compared to March shipment’s level. While for LLDPE Film C4, the offers decreased between $40-50/ton compared to the same period. To China market, the offers for HDPE Film and LLDPE Film C4 are available at $770/ton and at $750/ton, respectively, on LC at sight, CIF China Main Port basis. However, the producer source is not sure about the price changes to China market.
So far, buyers remain unresponsive towards the offers. Within Southeast Asia, most countries are entangled with Coronavirus issues. In Malaysia and the Philippines, the countries are already under lockdown; hence, the market is quiet. In Thailand, the government announced curfew to curb the spreads of the virus. Whereas in Vietnam, buyers are adopting a wait-and-see stance. In short, Southeast Asian buyers are uninterested in taking cargoes since sales for end-products are slowing down amid Coronavirus. Meanwhile, in China, the situation regarding the virus is a lot better, yet, the demand for resins remains sluggish since the sales for end-products has yet to improve, SSESSMENTS.COM was told.
The producer added to SSESSMENTS.COM that Southeast Asian buyers think that the current PE prices are still high despite the downward adjustments. Most buyers perceived that PE prices ideally should be below $800/ton-level. As such, buyers showed resistance towards the current offers. At the moment, the producer wants to monitor the market further although they acknowledge that the outlook is not optimistic.
