Styrene monomer inventories held by traders in eastern China was estimated at 30,600 mt Friday, falling 20.1% week on week to hit a fresh 5-month low, amid supply disruptions and delayed vessel arrivals over the past week, industry sources said Friday.
East China trader inventories were last lower on December 8 last year, at 26,800 mt, S&P Global Platts data showed.
Traders attributed the fall in inventories to delayed vessel arrivals over the past week owing to persistent bad weather, as well as firm buying demand for prompt loading cargoes from Chinese end-users coinciding with multiple plant maintenance.
Industry sources estimated that around 13,300 mt of SM arrived in East China this week, but consumption continued to outstrip the volume of cargoes arrived.
Weekly SM consumption was estimated at 19,700 mt Friday. However, the supply tightness was expected to ease going ahead, with around 16,000 mt of Middle Eastern origin cargoes due to arrive in East China next Wednesday.
Mirroring the current tightness in the East China spot market, the prompt domestic SM marker rose 3.7% or Yuan 400/mt week on week to close at Yuan 11,160/mt Thursday, equating to $1,487/mt on an import parity basis.
The CFR China marker was assessed at $1,412/mt Thursday, up $28/mt over the same period.
–Frank Zeng, [email protected]
–Edited by Norazlina Juma’at, [email protected]
