PP price hikes in China post-holidays

At the start of this week, Chinese players who have started to return to their desks are faced with price hikes on homo-PP prices, which caused the sentiment in other global PP markets including Southeast Asia and Turkey to shift this week, as per Chemorbis. In China’s PP market, both regional and overseas producers revealed higher offers for November, with traders following the same pricing strategy. Higher crude oil prices, which have been trading above US$82/barrel since the end of last week, along with rising naphtha prices, which reached five-month highs at the start of this week are amongst the reasons behind these increases. Speculative buying interest especially from traders and distributors, along with the bullish domestic market, where two Chinese producers’ lifted their offers by around CNY450-700/ton ($67-105/ton) when compared with the pre-holiday period, were other factors encouraging producers to raise their prices. In China’s import market, a major Taiwanese producer revealed their November PP raffia and injection prices US$80/ton higher compared to the October level, while the company pulled their PP block copolymer prices up by US$40/ton month over month. Similarly, a global producer offered Middle Eastern PP raffia with increases of US$40-60/ton from October prices, while the producer raised PP block copolymer prices by US$20/ton on a monthly basis. As the market saw further increases from traders as well, the overall import range for both dutiable and non-dutiable origins gained US$40-100/ton from the week before the holidays. However, as buyers continue to be cautious with their purchases and the upstream costs are showing signs of stabilization for now, most players foresee a mainly stable trend at current levels over the short term. The upward rally in China also affected the sentiment in Southeast Asia. Seeing slightly better demand this week, PP sellers in the region have started to look for prices similar to the newly emerging levels in China. Finding further support from limited availability because of a number of plant shutdowns across the region, sellers are now watching the developments in the Chinese market in order to see the feasibility of a firming trend in the days ahead. Similarly, the sentiment in Turkey has started to shift amongst sellers, with traders starting this week on a firm note after conceding to some discounts in the previous week. A US$30/ton price hike on PP, which came from the domestic producer, Petkim at the start of this week, was another factor firming the sentiment.