The supply-demand game saw the acrylonitrile market rise first and then fall this week. As of May 23rd, the mainstream negotiation for container self pickup at East China ports remains at 8500-8700 yuan/ton, an increase of 100 yuan/ton from last week’s high-end price; Short distance delivery to the Shandong market remains at around 8400-8500 yuan/ton, up 50 yuan/ton from last week’s low-end price.
In the first half of this week, spot resources were limited and factory inventory was not under pressure. Despite continuous losses, manufacturers continued to raise prices at high levels. Coupled with expectations of a gradual increase in acrylic fiber load, market sentiment was supported, and domestic acrylonitrile market prices fluctuated upwards. As the weekend approaches, although factory inventory is still not under pressure, overall supply is abundant, and in the long run, new production capacity will continue to be put into operation. However, downstream demand growth space is limited, so the market is fluctuating downwards.
Supply side: Since May, the capacity utilization rate of the acrylonitrile industry has gradually decreased to below 75%, with reduced production but overall supply remaining abundant, with only a slight shortage of spot resources in certain markets. From the perspective of the northern market, the external sales volume has also significantly decreased since May; Although the new production capacity of Sinochem Quanzhou in the East China market has been released, it is reported that most of it is flowing to the South China market and underground contract factories in Zhejiang. At the same time, the restart process of Anqing Petrochemical’s 80000 ton plant is slow, and shipments are not as expected.
On the demand side, the consumption of acrylonitrile in the main downstream industries has also shown an increase, especially in the production of acrylic fiber enterprises, which has gradually increased from less than 30% to over 40%. It is expected that the Jilin chemical fiber plant will gradually recover in the middle and late stages, and the overall load of acrylic fiber may recover to above 60% by then; The ABS industry has maintained a production rate of below 70%, but the total production capacity of the industry has gradually increased to 9.765 million tons per year, resulting in an increase in acrylonitrile consumption.
However, although the consumption of the main downstream industries has shown growth, there are also many stocks in the early stage, so there is no significant gap in contract supply. Moreover, with the restart of the Haijiang plant in the future, new production capacity will gradually be released, and the tight situation of spot resources will gradually ease. Therefore, the market lacks the driving force to continue to rise. In addition, in the long run, the 400000 ton acrylonitrile new unit of Zhenhai Refining and Chemical is planned to start production in early June, and the 260000 ton expansion unit of Jilin Petrochemical is planned to start production in late June. At that time, the situation of oversupply will worsen again, and the existing units will still face passive production reduction pressure.
Overall, the current overall supply is abundant, and in the long run, new production capacity will continue to be put into operation. However, there is limited room for downstream demand growth, so it is expected that the market will experience fluctuations and decline.
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