Southeast Asian Market Players Voiced Out Diverse Pricing Outlook For PE Considering The Influencing Factors
- Local PE offers within Southeast Asia market remain firm, deals recorded limited
- Malaysia’s Lotte Chemical Titan has shut its HDPE plant, tight supply reported in the country
- Market players shared different pricing outlook considering demand and feedstock prices
Southeast Asian market players contacted by SSESSMENTS.COM voiced out diverse pricing outlook for PE considering the influencing factors. In Thailand, local offers for PE across all grades via traders remained stable from last week’s levels. However, in effort to lure buyers, one of the traders decided to offer for local HDPE Film and LLDPE Film C4 at THB1,500-2,000/ton ($48-64/ton) lower and at THB1,500/ton ($48/ton) lower for localized Malaysian LDPE Film from a local producer’s offers. Despite that, not many buyers showed interest and most of them only purchase on an as-needed basis. The number of deals remains scanty. Whereas in the Philippines, local offers for HDPE Film and LLDPE Film C4 were kept stable from a week earlier. Likewise, local offers for PE across all grades in Malaysia were also stable as compared to the same period. Detailed information for Indonesia and Vietnam market is available in WeeklySSESSMENTS of the respective countries.
From imports, a Thai trader informed that offers for LLDPE Film C4 from one of the Middle Eastern producers are still available at last week’s level. Citing that the Middle Eastern producer has yet to release new offers for July shipment to the Southeast Asia market; which are likely to be announced between June 20-25. The trader opined that the upcoming offers should remain firm following the crude oil prices. To the Philippines, import offers from a Thai PE producer for HDPE Film and LLDPE Film C4 stood at $860/ton and at $850/ton, respectively. On a weekly comparison, the offers for HDPE Film increased by $20/ton but no comparison available for LLDPE Film C4. To date, deals for both Thai cargoes concluded at $5/ton lower than the initial offer levels. On the other side, a Malaysian polyolefins producer reportedly has sold all July allocation to the Southeast Asia market. The Malaysian producer managed to close deals for HDPE Film at $830/ton, or $20/ton lower than the initial offer levels. All offers are on LC at sight, CIF Main Port basis, SSESSMENTS.COM noted.
By and large, demand for PE resins within the Southeast Asia market remains sluggish this week despite the slight improvement observed, particularly in the Malaysia market. In Thailand, the overall demand is around 30% lower than level under normal conditions. Buying sentiment in the country is rather bearish as buyers only purchase on a hand-to-mouth basis following the slow sales for finished products. In the Philippines, the market has yet to fully resume although lockdown has been lifted since June 1. In Malaysia, even though the overall demand is still considered slow, some buyers are more willing to make procurement this week since the demand for end-products also started to pick up. On the supply side, tightness reported in the Malaysia market especially for HDPE Film and LLDPE Film C4 grades. In the plant news, SSESSMENTS.COM was told that Thailand’s PTT Public Company Ltd has resumed production at its 400,000 tons/year LLDPE plant after previously shut on June 4 due to technical issues. In the meantime, Malaysia Lotte Chemical Titan’s 220,000 tons/year HDPE plant was shut since last week and is expected to be back on-stream on June 26.
For the outlook, Southeast Asian market players shared different opinions to SSESSMENTS.COM. Some opined that PE prices will meet downward adjustment in the upcoming week as buyers began to show stiff resistance toward high prices and considering the current state of demand. On the contrary, some others believe that PE price will remain firm at least until the end of June considering the firm feedstock prices.
