Chinese Benzoyl Chloride Prices Continue their Bearish March as Demand Remains Under Pressure

Shanghai (China): Fluctuations in the prices of Aluminium Chloride and Carbonyl Chloride within the regional Chinese market also relieved cost pressure on the production of Benzoyl Chloride. USA manufacturing orders from China are down 40% due to unrelenting demand collapse within the domestic market.

The prices of Benzoyl Chloride decreased in the Chinese market, with prices ranging at USD 1670/ton and a weekly de-escalation of 1.8% (USD 30) as recorded by ChemAnalyst pricing team data. The inventories tend to increase in the regional market with higher stockpiling of the product with the traders and the suppliers.

Meanwhile, Benzoyl Chloride demand from the downstream industries remained sluggish as the year draws to a close.

There was a decrease in the overall operating rate of benzene feedstock, a decline in the demand for benzene and hydrogenated benzene, and low market sentiment. Benzene bidding prices are lower this week due to a weak industrial chain. Benzene prices have dropped for three straight days, and crude oil prices have fallen for three consecutive days. Benzene prices continued to fall due to poor fundamentals in the feedstock market.

Due to cancelled sailings of container ships and rollovers of ocean carrier exports, U.S. coordination managers expect delays in delivering goods from China in early January. Carriers have been executing an active capacity management strategy by announcing more blank sailings and suspending services to balance supply with demand, as said by the traders in the Chinese market. Ocean carriers are blanking more sailings than ever because of the relentless decline in container freight rates from Asia caused by a collapse in demand.

A resetting of supply-demand can turn into a recession when monetary policy is used to fight inflation. Economic uncertainty, geopolitical concerns, and increasingly heated market competition will further complicate the container shipping market. The freight charges in the Asian market tend to drop with fluctuations in the cost of trade routes via the North American West and East Coast by 5-6%.