Multifarious responses have been expressed by buyers from Southeast Asia, China and South Asia to the latest offers from PVC producers based in Indonesia, Philippines, and the US. A regional trader informed SSESSMENTS.COM that leading Indonesian PVC producer released July shipment offers for both China and Malaysia markets at $780/ton, up by $80/ton from June shipment. To date, the response is not great with some customers choosing to skip procurements while others submitted lower bids even though the producer is not willing to give a discount. From the South Asia market, Indonesia origin PVC cargoes are offered at $820-830/ton to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. A gloomy response comes from Bangladesh as demand is not yet recovering due to the worsening impact of coronavirus since last week. However, demand in Sri Lanka is reportedly started to pick up.
The trader also reveals to SSESSMENTS.COM that import PVC offers of US origin are available at $790/ton, an increase of $130-140/ton as compared to last month, which is deemed too high and unworkable. Trader identifies that tight supply can be a reason why prices spike as the producer is still adjusting to the improvement in demand in US domestic market, while at the same time, their production activities are reported running at 30% lower than normal capacity. The trader also said that the Philippines producer finally announced export offers after the lockdown took effect in their country. The producer’s offers stand at $760-770/ton to Vietnam market with an unverified report saying that deals have been reached at the initial level. All import offers are on LC at sight, CIF Main Port basis.
The trader said that demand is still in a gradual improvement in the Malaysian market. Not much difference on overall from last week, although converters and their supporting industries expected to be able to increase their production rate from 30-40% to 50-60% shortly as the construction sectors start improving as SSESSMENTS.COM quoted from the trader.
