China faces divergent supply status for import and domestic PE

In China, players report that import PE supplies from overseas companies are relatively limited when compared to May owing to reduced quotas from Middle Eastern sources for June, as per ChemOrbis. This situation contrasts with comfortable domestic availability in the country despite several ongoing turnarounds. Now, smaller import allocations may keep the market steady moving into June, whereas the expected restarts at some of the local producers may exert further downwards pressure on the local market, players opine. In the import market, a Middle Eastern producer elected to roll over their PE prices for the new month. A source at the producer highlighted, “We are offering normal allocations for June, but many Middle Eastern producers are giving substantially smaller allocations for this month. Demand is not very encouraging, but we think that limited overseas availability will keep prices steady.” In the local market, a distributor commented that this year, PE stocks are more comfortable than last year while he attributed this situation to slow local digestion of the materials. A couple of players stated that several PE plants were set to resume production in June following maintenance shutdowns. A trader based in Ningbo commented that the Chinese market is mostly stable nowadays. Most traders don’t have high inventories while they are tracking the market to gauge the trend. Another trader noted, “LDPE prices had dropped a lot and hence they may follow a steady trend. For LLDPE, the market is likely to remain flat as well since the high season is coming in a few months’ time.” He thinks that domestic producers would not easily cut their prices given the relatively better outlook for PE compared to PP. In the meantime, there were speculations about a significant amount of Iranian PE cargos that were due to arrive to the ports by the end of May. A trader offering Iranian PE countered, “There are some rumors that a large volume of Iranian shipments will reach China by the end of the month, but these rumors are unfounded. Export volumes from Iran will be limited in June due to some maintenance shutdowns. We hope to resume our normal allocations by July, about when we are optimistic regarding buying interest given high LLDPE season.” According to ChemOrbis, in production news, SINOPEC SABIC Tianjin Petrochemical shut its LDPE and HDPE units for maintenance on May 7. The plant has a total PE capacity of 750,000 tpa. CNOOC and Shell Petrochemicals shut its 250,000 tpa LDPE plant located at Huizhou by mid-May given some technical issues. Zhenhai Refining & Chemical also shut its 450,000 tpa PE plant on May 18 for a maintenance that was to last around 40 days. Shenhua Baotou Coal Chemical plans to implement a turnaround at its 300,000 LLDPE/HDPE plant in July.