Styrene import supply declines, domestic supply remains abundant

Recently, the stalemate performance of styrene has made the business operators more difficult to operate. The price of 8250-8650 yuan/ton has been enough for one and a half months. The main reason is that the current time node and price point support the short-term risk awareness and the high inventory background. Sustained repression of lack of confidence. So what is the trend of the supply side that is crucial to affecting inventory?

With the continuous increase in the production of styrene capacity in China, the self-sufficiency rate has been steadily increasing year by year. As of 2018, 30% of China’s apparent consumption of styrene comes from foreign imports, including Saudi Arabia and Japan. In Taiwan, South Korea, Kuwait, etc., domestic supply has increased to 70%.

From the perspective of external supply, it is understood that the recent feedback from many mainstream reservoir areas has led to a significant decline in the overall import-to-ship rhythm. On the one hand, due to the end of the first quarter to the second quarter, many sets of styrene plants in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Europe and the United States. On the other hand, the US dollar has a high external market, and the internal and external markets continue to be upside down, including the continued closure of the European and Asian arbitrage windows, which has restricted the merchants’ interest in speculative trading, and the circulation of US dollar goods continues to decline.

From the perspective of domestic supply, it is not difficult to find out in the styrene equipment maintenance list. This week, with the recovery of Shandong Liaoyuan and Qingdao Bay Chemicals, the Qilu Petrochemical will resume normal load before the end of March. At present, only Yanshan Petrochemical has been inspected for planned maintenance, and overall construction is expected to maintain a high load level. After May, some Shandong small installations and installations in the northwestern region have been inspected and repaired. There are no planned overhauls in the mainstream large-scale installations around Jiangsu and Zhejiang and Shandong and Hebei. Therefore, domestic styrene supply will remain adequate and stable in the second quarter.