(ICIS) -- Asia’s purified terephthalic
acid (PTA) producers are mulling further cutbacks in production to stem losses
being incurred since last month, given a sharper slump in their product prices
compared to feedstock paraxylene (PX), industry sources said on Friday. The
price spread between PTA and PX has narrowed to $90-110/tonne (?67-81/tonne) in
November, compared with $300-400/tonne seen in January to April 2011.
“If the situation remains, a larger scale of production cutbacks is
expected across Asia in December, which will finally underpin PTA prices and
bring down PX demand and prices,” a Shanghai-based trader said.
From a year high seen in late March, PTA values have tumbled 31% to
$1,030-1,080/tonne CFR China Main Port (CMP) on 11 November because of PTA
capacity expansion, poor macroeconomic environment and soft downstream demand,
particularly, in China. Spot PX prices declined 20% to $1,435-1,445/tonne
CFR CMP over the same period, ICIS data showed.
Perspectives of
development of polymer markets, pricing issues and other important aspects will
be discussed at The
Polymers Summit-2011, which will be held in Moscow on November 30,
2011 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. The Summit will be organized by MRC with the
support of ICIS. The main idea of the Summit is to find a "the golden mean"
between producers and converters. When producers receive exactly such margin of
production, which helps them to invest in production expansion in order to
substitute polymers imports, and the converters receive such price of feedstock
that helps them to compete imported finished products. The Summit site gives an
access to the live video of the Summit, speakers" presentations, as well as
opportunities to ask questions or make appointments to any Summit
partcipant.
mrcplast.com
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