A Vietnamese PS producer informed SSESSMENTS.COM that the company received low bids despite the significant price adjustment. In comparison to a week earlier, the offers for GPPS Injection in the local market decreased by $40/ton on the low-end of the price range and by $70/ton on the high-end of the price range. From the export market, the offers on CIF Southeast Asia basis decreased by $50/ton on a weekly comparison. However, customers are expecting further lower prices and some submitted bids at $70/ton lower than the initial offer level. While to China, the producer decided to skip offering for this week as the local offers in China’s domestic market are more competitive. Further added, some Chinese customers were submitting bids at below $800/ton-level but rejected by the producer. Meanwhile, producer’s offers to export market on FOB basis also reduced by $50/ton on the high-end of the price range compared to the same period.
As stated to SSESSMENTS.COM, the demand is softening as the government suggested to work from home and study at home. Moreover, export sales are slowing down as well following the lockdown in Malaysia and the Philippines. Although Indonesia has not implemented lockdown yet, the sentiment is already weak. Additionally, Vietnamese and Chinese customers informed that their sales to the US and Europe are affected by the pandemic. On the production side, the producer’s PS plant is still running at a normal rate as the company has a high inventory of SM and could not skip procuring the SM due to contract.
“We think that the offers will move further down due to the low SM and crude oil prices. However, we are unsure of the number of decreases as crude oil prices have slightly rebounded recently and we need to monitor the market further,” the producer opined to SSESSMENTS.COM.
