Asian ethylene market moves south amid crackers shutdown

The Asian ethylene market continued to move lower on the week ending 5 August 2016, with CFR Northeast Asia values dropped $20/ton from the earlier trading days, touching the lowest levels seen since late June 2016. This is against the odd that several major crackers in the region are entering annual turnaround season this month, in which initially was expected to give the market a sentiment boost.  A list of Asia crackers shutdown in August is shown in the following table:

With an estimated production loss of 360,000 tons during these shutdowns, market are caught with surprise that prices are following a stable to soft trend, which is visualised in the following graph:

The influx of deep-seas cargoes from Middle East to the Fareast Asia region is blamed for such paradox trend, industry experts said. Alongside with lower downstream operation rates in China due to the G20 Summit, the ethylene market might face tough road ahead. Yet, players are expecting a more positive outlook in September as most downstream plants in China resume normal operation rate to prepare for the traditional high demand season.