Rising feedstock Styrene market surged the prices of Polystyrene in China
- 08-Mar-2022 3:24 PM
- Journalist: Li Hua
The prices of Polystyrene in China surged to $1500/ton GPPS FOB Qingdao with a week-on-week inclination of 3.4%. Strong market sentiments and unavailability of products resulted in such a trajectory. Feedstock Styrene market was also appearing to be healthy where the prices were observed to be $1345/ton CFR Shanghai and $1460/ton with a week-on-week inclination of 5.1% and 5.0% respectively. It was heard that lower product inventories and stronger product downstream trends, further supported the price trend.
Domestic Polystyrene prices surged with strong product futures and geopolitical tension between Russia and Ukraine which accelerated the prices of crude and Natural Gas. The sales and revenue of several downstream Polystyrene producers squeezed mainly; packaging enterprises which pressurized them to fulfil the requirement from the consumer’s end. The operating and rates were also affected due to increasing turnaround in March. China majorly imports feedstock Styrene monomer (SM) and FOB Korea prices were surged to $1370/ton-$1380/ton, with the gain of $5/MT. Ethylene prices were also climbed high due to robust crude and Naphtha values. Crippling product availability in the regional market helped the price trend. Increasing demand of Polystyrene in the Asian countries namely, South Korea and Vietnam has affected trading due to scarcity of product created supply/demand gap.
According to ChemAnalyst, the prices of Polystyrene will gradually slow down with sufficient product availability and bearish feedstock Benzene and Ethylene market. The sales of Polystyrene from the downstream markets are expected to surge with increasing production rates and deteriorating demand in the regional market of China. Downstream Packaging industries will more likely improve with bulk purchases among the traders. However, logistics constraints and freight charges are expected to increase. In China, some cargo will be shipped to export in March and port inventories will fall in East China.
