Weekly Report: PTA (Mar.5- Mar.9)

The sales of polyester products kept weak and made the PTA market stay downward. Judged from the spot prices, domestic discussions of PTA accumulatively dropped 200 Yuan/ton to 8900 Yuan/ton. Taiwan goods decreased 10 dollars to 1200 dollars/ton. Korean goods decreased 5 dollars/ton to 1185 dollars/ton.

As for the futures, the whole market was also downtrend this week. By the close on Friday, contract 1205 of PTA futures dropped to 9134 Yuan/ton in Zhengzhou Commodity of Exchange. Compared with the close price on Monday, it lost 74 Yuan/ton, down 0.8%.

In the crude oil market, the geopolitical issue got much released and the supportive power for increase of oil prices became weaker. Besides, influenced by weak consumption in U.S. and slowing-down Chinese economy, the expenditure of crude oil decreased apparently. Therefore, the overall tendency of the oil market was fluctuating and adjusting. Ended by Thursday, April Futures of New York crude oil closed at 106.58 dollars/bbl, down 0.02 dollars compared to the price before. Brent April futures increased 1.79 dollars/bbl to 125.44 dollars/bbl.

PX price was also greatly affected by the oil prices. Moreover, the stagnant downstream market made PX prices drop and the whole polyester industrial chain also showed sliding tendency. In the market, Asian PX price accumulatively dropped 18 dollars/ton to 1640 dollars (Thursday) within one week. European PX price dropped to 1561 dollars on market.

At present, the performance of the downstream market, which was at the loss level, still determined the trend in PTA market. For the purpose of offsetting the loss, most PTA manufacturer chose to upgrade the settlement prices and lead the cost pressure transform to the downstream market. Hence, the profit of downstream polyester products was scarce and the production-marketing of the manufacturer dropped. The leading quotation of polyester bottle chips was around 11800 Yuan/ton.

To sum up, PTA market is difficult to have any big move due to weak demand in the terminal market and pale supportive power of upstream feedstock, PX. Therefore, PTA market will stay adjusting in a short term.