(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.