Southeast Asia PS Market Is On Halt
- PS prices in Southeast Asia market showed limited changes
- Demand moved in contrast with last week’s expectation
- Market players stated bearish outlook for PS demand
Based on the data collected by SSESSMENTS.COM, PS market in Southeast Asia within the week commencing June 8 is on halt. An Indonesian PS producer maintained the local offers stable over the week. Likewise, a Malaysian producer also decided to roll-over offers for HIPS Injection to the local and export market. Both, to the local and export market, the producer is offering between $970-1,000/ton-level. To the export market, the Indonesian PS producer managed to secure some deals to China at $950/ton on LC at sight, CIF China main port basis, with a volume of between 2,000-2,500 tons. In the import market, last week’s offers for South Korean GPPS Injection and HIPS Injection to Vietnam stood at $920/ton and $1,020/ton respectively, on LC at sight, CIF main port basis. However, until the time of publication, no fresh import offers were reported by Southeast Asian PS market players.
The overall demand for PS resins in Southeast Asia reported subdued. In Malaysia, demand for PS resins has yet to show improvement. Some even predict that demand could be moving to a worse situation since some manufacturers received orders cancellation from their customers. Likewise, most manufacturers in Indonesia are only running at 40% from the maximum capacity and the buying quantity is only at 30% from the normal amount. An Indonesian manufacturer specialized in automotive applicants unveiled to SSESSMENTS.COM that due to the sluggish end-products demand, the company is still halting the production activity until further notice. Better demand reported for food packaging, PS foam, and houseware. At the moment, operating rates from these industries are running around 60%. On the supply front, limited supply for the spot market reported from Petrochemicals (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd. Currently, the producer focuses on building stock for buffer during maintenance shutdown at its 110,000 tons/year HIPS plant in mid-October for 40 days.
Looking ahead, Southeast Asian market players opined that PS prices would remain firm at least until the end of June as styrene price is still on an upward trend. Demand-wise, it is really hard to predict. Since demand for the end-products has yet to show significant improvement, market players prefer to stay on a wait-and-see position, as stated to SSESSMENTS.COM.
