Ethylene Glycol is Difficult to Get Rid of the Weak Pattern
2019-05-15
Terminal demand has not improved, and polyester companies may actively reduce operating rates. In addition, despite the decline in ethylene glycol stocks in East China in the past two weeks, overall inventories are still at historically high levels. Ethylene glycol prices are expected to continue to be in short selling.
Limited by its own fundamentals, since the listing of ethylene glycol futures on December 10 last year, prices have shown a downward trend.
Factory operating rate is still very high
Since the beginning of this year, the operating rate of ethylene glycol plants in China has been maintained at a relatively high level. Although it has encountered the Spring Festival holiday, it has little effect on the start-up of ethylene glycol devices. At the end of April, the coal-based ethylene glycol plant was intensively overhauled. As of April 26, the weekly operating rate of ethylene glycol plants was 81.59%, down 0.97% from the previous month and up 5.59% from the same period last year. As of April 30, the operating rate of weekly coal-based ethylene glycol units was 55.01%, down 5.35 percentage points from the previous month and down 0.99 percentage points from the same period last year.
Polyester market "not busy in the peak season"
After the downstream construction began to return to normal at the end of February this year, the operating rates of the polyester plant and the Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces continued to remain high. In April, the average operating rate of polyester chips was 89.06%, up 1.98 percentage points from March; the average operating rate of polyester staple fiber was 83.42%, down 3.13 percentage points from March; polyester filament circumference The average operating rate was 83.4%, an increase of 0.9 percentage points from March.
However, a high startup rate does not mean an increase in demand. Although in terms of time, the polyester market is currently in the traditional peak season, the trade situation has not improved significantly. In April, the average production and sales rate of weekly polyester chips was 79.88%, up 10.63 percentage points from March; the average production and sales rate of polyester staple fibers was 88.2%, down 0.8 percentage points from March; polyester filament production and sales The rate is 110.91% and the lowest is 72.27%. Compared with March, it decreased by 7.09 and 1.73 percentage points respectively.
The construction was active, but the terminal demand did not improve significantly, resulting in higher inventory levels of various varieties in the polyester market. The average stock of polyester chips in April was 7 days, 0.5 days higher than that in March; the average stock of polyester staple fibers was 6.9 days, 1.1 days less than that in March; the average stock of polyester filaments was [POY", fdy and dty were 13.7 days, 13.3 respectively. Days and 19.8 days increased by 0.82 days, 0.55 days and 1.05 days from March.
Port stocks hit record highs
Since the beginning of this year, ethylene glycol stocks in the eastern ports of China have risen rapidly. On February 11, after the Spring Festival holiday, their stocks exceeded 1 million tons, reaching 1.02 million tons, exceeding the highest level last year. Since then, stocks have continued to increase, reaching a peak of 1.28 million tons on April 11, an increase of 497,000 tons from the beginning of the year. As of May 5, the ethylene glycol port inventory in East China was 1.177 million tons, still the highest level in the past two years.
The time span will be extended and ethylene glycol stocks have remained high this year. Historically, from February to March 2014, stocks in eastern China exceeded 1.1 million tons, peaking at only 1.176 million tons. Due to the continuous high inventory, the pressure of ethylene glycol cycle price is one of the important reasons for the lack of ethylene glycol price in recent years.
In summary, although the polyester market is in the traditional peak season, terminal demand has not improved. In the later period, polyester companies may actively reduce the operating rate to cope with the pressure of rising stocks. Under negative repression, it is difficult to get rid of the weak pattern of post-market ethylene glycol prices.
