Dec paraxylene ACP talks end with ExxonMobil-Yisheng Petrochemical partial settlement

04-Dec-13

Negotiations for December Asian Contract Price for paraxylene ended Tuesday with two partial settlements reached between ExxonMobil and China's Yisheng Petrochemical as well as BP, sources close to the negotiations said, as per Platts. There are four PX ACP sellers in Asia -- ExxonMobil, Japan's Idemitsu Kosan and JX Nippon Oil and Energy, and South Korea's S-Oil. For December, ExxonMobil, Idemitsu and S-Oil had made nominations at US$1470/mt CFR, while JX did not nominate for December. S-Oil subsequently slashed its nomination to US$1415/mt CFR last week. There are six ACP buyers: BP, Taiwan's Capco, Oriental Petrochemical (Taiwan) Corp., Japan's Mitsui Chemicals and Mitsubishi Chemical, and China's Yisheng Petrochemical. The negotiations appeared to have ended without any settlement late last Friday, when the nomination values expired. But discussions restarted Monday, with ExxonMobil and Yisheng reaching settlement at US$1400/mt CFR. After the partial settlement, BP re-emerged at the negotiation table to make the December ACP a major settlement. More than two sellers need to agree with more than two buyers in order for the ACP to reach major settlement. For November, PX ACP negotiations ended without settlement. For October, the ACP was settled at US$1470/mt CFR.