(ICIS) -- China's purified terephthalic acid (PTA) futures prices surged 4.02% to yuan (CNY) 9,626/tonne ($1,441/tonne) Thursday morning on bullish sentiment, prompting a trading halt, market sources said.
Recent outages at regional plants, along with positive news on the US economy overnight, spurred buying activities that pushed PTA futures to breach the 4% cap set on daily swings in values in just the first two hours of trade at the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange, they said.
In the spot market, domestic PTA prices in China jumped CNY150-200/tonne from Wednesday to CNY8,950-9,000/tonne ex-warehouse on strong buying from a number of Zhejiang-based polyester makers, market sources said.
Market players were surprised by the sudden and sharp increase in prices, notwithstanding the supply tightness in the PTA market. PTA supply was expected to remain tight in November due to low operating rates at plants, along with outages and maintenance shutdowns at a number of Chinese and Taiwanese PTA facilities.