Market Sentiment Waned By The Recent Policy From Chinese Government, Sway Futures And Spot PP Prices
- Local prices shifted as driven by the futures market movement and current state of demand
- Sinopec SABIC Tianjin Petrochemical Co Ltd (SSTPC) will shut its PP plant
- Market players voiced out different pricing outlook
Market sentiment waned by the recent policy from the Chinese government, which led to swaying futures and spot PP prices. Starting from May 10, the Bureau of Commerce of Zhejiang City announced that China will suspend export for some products, such as Coronavirus testing reagents, testing masks, medical protective clothing, respirators, infrared thermometers, and other medical materials as well as non-medical masks. The suspension was made after the General Administration of Customs notified that the National Customs Department discovered and issued a list of underqualified goods related to the epidemic prevention materials, which included more than 1.86 million unqualified masks and 16 enterprises dealing with the export market. This policy has set a domino effect on market sentiment, led to softer futures and spot PP prices. As SSESSMENTS.COM noted, local offers for PP Homo Raffia from traders dropped between CNY100-200/ton ($14-28/ton) from last week’s level. For coal-based PP Homo Raffia, the offers dipped by CNY50/ton ($7/ton) on a daily comparison. In the import market, Middle Eastern PP Homo Raffia cargoes remained stable from last week. While June shipment offers for PP Homo Raffia of Malaysia origin raised between $30-40/ton from May shipment.
As for PP Random Copolymer grades, the local offers from a trader went down by CNY400/ton ($56/ton) compared to last week’s level. In the import market, June shipment offers from a Malaysian polyolefins producer were adjusted higher by $40/ton on a monthly comparison. Further added to SSESSMENTS.COM, a global trading house mentioned that the overall prices for import PP cargoes remain high at the moment.
In general, buying sentiment for PP in the China domestic market this week is not as good as last week. Last week, the market was quite good as stimulated by the rebound in crude oil and local prices. However, the PP market this week is rather quiet. The policy imposed by the government in order to ensure the quality of exported medical supplies has slowed down the market. On the plant news, SSESSMENTS.COM was told that Sinopec SABIC Tianjin Petrochemical Co Ltd (SSTPC) will undergo maintenance shutdown at its 450,000 tons/year PP plant for 65 days starting from May 14, 2020.
For the outlook, some market players opined to SSESSMENTS.COM that local PP prices will remain firm following the movement of monomer prices. However, considering the lack of demand support, some others predict that PP prices will eventually go down further in the days to come. Meanwhile, even though activities in the domestic market have almost back to normal, export market is still haunted by the Coronavirus pandemic and players believe that it will take some time for the export market to recover. As such, the overall outlook for China PP market remains cloudy.
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