Asia Daily PP and PE Overview 15 Sept 2016

There are no trading activities in China today due to the mid-Autumn Festival holidays. Market shall resume by next week.

In Southeast Asia, sentiment turns calmer after players concluded their deals in the previous trading session. Most sellers are monitoring market movement before announcing fresh prices while some are testing buyers’ respond toward higher PE offers. Indeed, a major Thailand producer up adjusted HDPE prices by $5/ton compared to last week for film, injection and blow molding grades, reaching $1160/ton CIF Vietnam, LC AS term. A source close to the producer informed, “Demand for HDPE has been weak and we have reduced operation rate to leverage opportunities in the ethylene market recently. Our customers are placing bid at $30-40/ton lower than initial offer levels, however, we are not accepting these prices yet.”  

There are very limited trading activities not only in the import market but also across the regional local grounds, except in Philippines where players still see healthy demand. Despite slower than expected buying interest, a major domestic maker in Malaysia decided to lift local HDPE film by MYR100/ton ($25/ton) and LLDPE and LDPE film by MYR50/ton ($12/ton) due to weaker US dollar parity. A buyer in the country informed, “This is the second price increment our supplier announced this month. Demand for our end products remain weak and we still have PE cargoes pending for delivery, hence we are not rushing to make additional purchases at the moment.”

In the PP market, a major Saudi Arabia producer announced new homo-PP offers to Indonesia at $1030/ton CIF Indonesia, LC AS term, slightly increased from the previous opening. However, Indonesian buyers are not showing strong buying interest with a market source informed, “Domestic market is rather weak, we couldn’t conclude satisfactory number of deal this week despite we are open to negotiation. We think room for further price increment is very limited at the current demand condition.”