Vienna — A 10,000 mt paraxylene cargo from the US is expected on the east coast of India in November, a buyer source said on the sidelines of the 52nd EPCA meeting in Vienna Tuesday.
The cargo is headed to India’s Materials Chemicals and Performance Intermediaries, formerly MCC PTA India, which has two purified terephthalic acid plants in West Bengal, Haldia. Its No.1 plant can produce 470,000 mt of PTA a year, while its second plant has an 800,000 mt/year capacity.
The source said the paraxylene from the US, which is loaded on a larger vessel that cannot berth at the smaller East Coast India port, will first transship in South Korea where is some demand for PX, before loading 10,000 mt onto a smaller vessel to India.
Going forward, however, the US to India route will still be an opportunistic one for paraxylene in the near term given the logistical challenges.
Market sources in Asia’s paraxylene market have recently said that US-origin paraxylene cargoes, which were previously headed to China and Northeast Asia, could likely be diverted to other Asian regions such as Southeast Asia following China’s imposition of import tariffs on US-origin PX on September 24. The current tariff level is 10%.
–Ng Baoying, [email protected]
–Gustav Holmvik, [email protected]
–Edited by Maurice Geller, [email protected]
Source: S&P Global Platts
