The demand side is underperforming, and the unilateral PTA market is hard to come by

From March to May, after the centralized maintenance of the PTA device, the loss on the supply side narrowed.
Recently, while the cost side has shown strong support, the demand side has performed poorly, and the main contract price of PTA futures has fluctuated widely.

There is certain support on the cost side

Crude oil prices remain strong, with Brent crude oil reaching a high of $70/barrel, an increase of 36.
3% since the beginning of the year.
From April to May, the crude oil-PX spread averaged at a high level of US$360/ton.

Due to the delay in the production of the new PX capacity of Zhejiang Petrochemical, the PX processing fee has performed well, with an average of US$265/ton in the past two months, which is a significant improvement from the average processing fee of less than US$200/ton last year.

In the context of large-scale production of refining and chemical integration, the overall PTA industry chain has an obvious pattern of oversupply.
Due to the poor overall demand of the industrial chain, market profits are more transferred between various links, and the collective rise in each link is difficult to see.

Since late May, the PX-naphtha price gap has narrowed by US$28/ton, but the PTA processing fee has risen significantly.

PTA processing fee increase

In the first quarter, after Baihong Petrochemical and Honggang Petrochemical went into production one after another, PTA processing fees began to narrow rapidly.
From March to April, the average PTA spot processing fees were 340 yuan/ton and 383 yuan/ton respectively.
In absolute terms, except for the large refining and chemical plants that have been put into production in the past two years, other manufacturers have basically suffered losses.

In fact, we have seen that due to the sharp increase in the price of acetic acid, the proportion of PTA production costs has increased.
Since then, the cost of acetic acid in PTA production has increased by nearly 100 yuan/ton compared with the beginning of the year, which means that almost all factories are in a loss situation from March to April.

In the past three months, the monthly PTA output loss caused by equipment maintenance has basically been more than 900,000 tons, of which the maintenance capacity in April was the largest.
As these devices are restarted one after another and the newly added overhaul devices are limited, the loss of PTA output in the later period is reduced.

The planned maintenance schedule in June mainly includes the Hengli No.

Polyester start load dropped

In the context of large-scale upstream production, polyester filaments have made significant profits.
Since March, filament profit has been outstanding in the entire industry chain.
However, due to insufficient downstream orders, it is difficult for manufacturers to cash in their profits.

Recently, filament manufacturers have repeatedly cut prices for promotions to ease the pressure of high inventory.
Currently, POY inventory is around 14 days, FDY is 24-25 days, and DTY is 25-26 days.

The profit of staple fiber is far less than that of filament yarn.
After the Spring Festival, processing fees have dropped significantly.

Downstream spinning mills generally concentrate on purchasing during low-price promotions.