At present, methanol inventory is significantly increased compared with that before the Spring Festival, and some enterprises are under great inventory pressure. At the same time, the domestic methanol price is still higher than India and other places, the intermediate spot price of CFR Southeast Asia continues to decline, and the import profit is still at a high position of about 130 yuan / ton. Affected by this, import volume or recovery.
Since the opening of the market after the Spring Festival holiday, the lowest price of methanol futures 2005 contract has been 2006 yuan / ton, and then it has experienced a rebound and repair, but the overall situation is still relatively weak. On the spot side, affected by the epidemic, the transportation is not smooth, and the upstream and downstream stocks have accumulated.
Price trend affected by epidemic situation
Looking back before the Spring Festival, methanol port goods continued to be in short supply, and the total inventory of ports in East China and South China dropped to about 600000 tons at the lowest. In the international market, the situation in the Middle East is in turmoil, Iran has limited gas supply, foreign units are under constant maintenance, domestic market and southwest gas supply are limited. Affected by the weather in the north line, transportation is limited, and the upstream and downstream olefin units have maintained a high start-up rate of 85% - 90%. The market expects that the shortage of domestic methanol supply will be prolonged for some time. Due to the large amount of purchase and replenishment in the downstream, the port quotation continued to be firm under the condition of no pressure on the port inventory. Until the Spring Festival, the quotation in Jiangsu was basically between 2300-2400 yuan / ton.
At the same time, regional price differences continue to appear. Due to the weather, the traffic in the northwest is blocked, and the price was nearly 1800 yuan / ton before this year. In the context of lower olefin enterprises' price reduction, methanol prices continue to weaken, and even there are actions of reducing prices to subsidize freight. But at that time, the market generally expected that the port methanol spot was in short supply in the first quarter, and the freight rate after the spring festival would probably drop back. A few days before the festival, some enterprises began to accumulate the stock actively, waiting for the port arbitrage window to open after the festival. However, due to the outbreak of the epidemic, methanol transportation is greatly affected, and trans provincial transportation is basically stopped.
At present, the supply and demand of the market are weak
In terms of upstream coal head units, due to the impact of logistics, the current inventory is significantly higher than before the Spring Festival. Some enterprises have a large inventory pressure, while raw coal is relatively short in the market. Most enterprises in Guanzhong and North line passively reduce their load to about 50%, involving a total capacity of about 12 million tons. However, under the pressure of inventory, price reduction is still the main way. Most of the quotations in Northwest China are around 1650-1700 yuan / ton. After the price center moves down, the transaction is slightly improved. In terms of gas head, the southwest unit resumed work smoothly, and SVW began to reduce the negative pressure. In the later stage, the northwest gas head resumed work worthy of attention. As a whole, as of February 6, the starting load of the overall methanol plant in China was 66.90%, down 7.66% on a month on month basis; the starting load in Northwest China was 77.14%, down 10.48% on a month on month basis. Compared with the same period last year, it also fell to different degrees. However, due to the inventory pressure of the manufacturer, the raw coal has been supplemented after the recovery of transportation, which should not significantly support the methanol price.
On the port side, inventories picked up slightly to 943000 tons. In terms of import, it is predicted that the import volume of methanol to Hong Kong from February 7 to 23 will be about 360000 tons, which will be significantly narrowed. In terms of foreign devices, it is also transmitted to Iran for gas limitation, and about 80% of the devices are still in shutdown state. The 1 × 720000t unit of Petronas was successfully restarted, and 2 × 1700000t units are still under maintenance. In the downstream, the methanol feed stock of the olefin unit was fully replenished, and the plant was not shut down during the Spring Festival. The limited transportation resulted in a certain inventory pressure on the finished products. As of February 6, the operating rate of olefin unit was 81.93%. At the same time, many units have announced maintenance plans, including Fude, Yangmei Hengtong, Chengzhi, Xingxing in late March and Shenhua Yulin in April. In terms of traditional demand, as of February 6, affected by the delay in the start-up of plates, the start-up rate of formaldehyde fell to 18.06%, the profit of dimethyl ether and MTBE declined significantly due to the impact of crude oil slump, and the start-up rate dropped to 21.8% and 36.52%. The author estimates that about 30% of methanol demand is affected by the epidemic situation. According to the two-week calculation, the corresponding methanol consumption affected is 500000-700000 tons.
More relaxed supply in the aftermarket
Affected by the epidemic situation, methanol start-up was delayed and demand fell, and the time window for more unexpected maintenance of foreign devices was staggered, which made it difficult for the market to maintain the shortage of spot goods in the port in the first quarter before the Spring Festival. According to the analysis of previous years, in March or so, as the weather in Iran warms up, the unit will resume production and supply will resume. At present, the price of methanol in China is still higher than that in India and other places. The intermediate spot price of CFR Southeast Asia continues to decline. As of February 11, it has fallen to 262.5 US dollars / ton. The import profit is still at a high position of about 130 yuan / ton. As a result, the import volume or recovery will impact the domestic port market.
It is estimated that 12 domestic methanol plants will be put into operation in 2020, with a total capacity of 8.55 million tons. There are also 6 million tons of methanol plants to be put into operation in the outer panel, significantly higher than 3.95 million tons in 2019 and 4.24 million tons in 2018. From the perspective of methanol demand, the traditional demand will decline, while the emerging demand, by the end of 2019, the coal to olefin capacity may be around 17 million tons, and the planned production of 2.5 million tons in 2020, so the methanol to olefin output may decline.
As a whole, affected by the epidemic, methanol inventory began to accumulate, downstream demand was more affected, later supply or more relaxed, and the probability of maintaining weak methanol futures was higher.
[information source] http://news.chemnet.com/detail-3297089.html