Bearish Polycarbonate Demand Impacted Bisphenol A Pricing

Bisphenol A market witnessed a downfall from the previous week as some parts of China are still facing rising COVID cases. While the demand for downstream Polycarbonate declined, the major raw material Bisphenol A price trend also experienced a fall.

China continues to follow the Zero policy in the Covid affected areas, which has resulted in the new lockdown of Tianjin. This lockdown has been disrupting the ports, causing a delay in the trading activities. Moreover, the labour shortage due to the lockdown restrictions has been affecting the onloading and offloading of goods, which means the supply to the domestic market is affected.

On Tuesday, rising upstream oil prices began to fall, hurting benzene, cumene, and phenol, which are utilized as feedstocks in the production of Bisphenol A. As a result, fluctuations in upstream and feedstock prices have had a negative impact on Bisphenol A pricing. Furthermore, Bisphenol A is a raw material used in the manufacturing of polycarbonates; however, polycarbonate demand in the domestic market has decreased. Therefore, the decreased production of downstream Polycarbonate ushered the Bisphenol A prices in China to drop.

In addition, key exporters to China are pulling back due to the pandemic-related port disruption. Due to the lower demand and sluggish buying and selling activity in the domestic market, the commodity has been stockpiled, causing the price of Bisphenol A to fall. As a result, on May 24th, the prices of Bisphenol A dropped by approximately 1%, with a decline of $25/tonne.

According to ChemAnalyst, "Bisphenol A market might rise in the coming weeks, as the downstream Polycarbonate demand is likely to increase across the region. The lockdown restrictions are expected to ease as the COVID cases might decrease in Shanghai. Also, the domestic trading is expected to gain strength if the local market resumes, further increasing the on-site supplies."