Northern American producers offer PE cargoes to ponderous Malaysia market. A converter revealed to SSESSMENTS.COM that offers from a US producer for LLDPE C4 film this week at $830/ton, which is $60/ton higher than offers at the beginning of the month. According to the producer, this cargo will be shipped from China. Converter suspected that the US producer diverted cargo to Southeast Asia due to slow absorption in China coupled by high costs of using bonded warehouses there. From a Canadian producer, the converter received completely new July shipment offers for mLLDPE C6 at $870/ton. Converter reports that no deals have been secured until the time of publication. All import offers on LC at sight, CIF Penang Port.
From their side, the converter does not have any plans to buy anything in a big volume as the overall demand for the end-products is not really moving yet following the slow export orders from its main market in Far East Asia. Moreover, PE businesses are now suffering from the cash flow issue; many of their domestic customers delay payments because of the cash crunch; therefore the company really pays attention to the payment timeline. However, the converter reported to SSESSMENTS.COM that payment is still quite smooth from overseas buyers. On the production sector, the converter received information that one of the Malaysian PE producers will bring back its HDPE plant with annual capacity of 220,000 tons on June 24 after two weeks maintenance. By early July, they would have some materials available in the market according to the converter.
Speaking of pricing outlook, the converter quoted discussions with producers who said that by the end of July or August, PE prices would start coming down. The converter then feels encouraged to take a wait-and-see stance at the moment, SSESSMENTS.COM noted.
