PP offers from the Middle East to Turkey and Egypt at a premium over Asian offers

PP markets in Turkey and Egypt have been under continuous pressure from lower offers for Middle Eastern origins in Asia for the past few months, as per Chemorbis. Offers for PP from the Middle Easte in Turkey and Egypt are carrying a premium over the done deal levels for the same origins reported in China and Southeast Asia. Asian PP markets, which continued to track a downward trend due to rising supplies and weak demand conditions in China this week, have seen considerably lower Middle Eastern offers when compared to other global markets. At the start of this month, overseas producers announced significant reductions of US$30-80/ton on their initial July PP offers to the Chinese market due to poor buying interest. The downward trend continued, with players seeing additional discounts on done deals. Despite an unexpected jump of US$40/ton in Asian spot propylene prices last week as a result of an explosion at Formosa’s No.1 cracker in Mailiao, Asian PP markets remained unaffected, with many PP players predicting further price decreases in the days ahead. After having offered noticeable decreases on their PP offers to Turkey over the month of June, sellers of Saudi Arabian origins started the month of July on a relatively firmer note. For the last couple of weeks, regional suppliers refused to offer further discounts in an effort to hold their prices at their target levels. However, continuous downward pressure from Asia, along with stagnant demand as most buyers elected to remain in the sidelines, broke sellers’ resistance at the end of last week, forcing them to offer additional decreases of US$10-20/ton on top of the earlier discounts of US$20-80/ton. Theoretical levels based on current Middle Eastern offers to China indicate that even after the recent discounts, current Middle Eastern offers to Turkey still have room to go down as a theoretical Middle Eastern PP price comes to the low US$1200s/ton CFR Turkey based on spot prices in China, while the majority of Middle Eastern PP raffia offers in Turkey are close to the level of US$1300/ton. In Egypt, where Middle Eastern PP sellers revealed July offers with smaller decreases of US$10-20/ton at the start of the month, a couple of Middle Eastern producers elected to agree to additional discounts of US$40/ton and US$10/ton from their initial levels, with the latter announcement coming this week. Despite these additional decreases, the Egyptian market is under even greater downward pressure based on the Middle Eastern offers in Asia than the Turkish market as the theoretical levels indicate a price gap of US$145-180/ton.