1、 Price trend
In April, the domestic methanol market continued to decline after rebounding. According to the price monitoring of business association, the average price of domestic methanol market at the beginning of the month is 1600 yuan / ton, and the price of domestic methanol market at the end of the month is 1657 yuan / ton, up 3.59% in the month, with a maximum amplitude of 11.88%, and the price is 23.76% lower than the same period last year.
2、 Market analysis
Product: domestic methanol rebounded in the first half of April and bottomed out again in the second half. Due to the staged stock up in the downstream and the considerable purchase volume of olefins, Shandong and other places in the mainland’s consumer market took the lead in the rise, while northwest and other places saw a positive trend. During the Qingming Festival in Yulin of Shenhua, the sales pressure on the northwest region was prominent. After the middle of the year, the price began to fall sharply, with the lowest price in Northern Shaanxi falling to 1280-1330 yuan / ton. By the end of the month, the main production area gradually stopped falling and stabilized, slightly rebounded, due to the considerable influence of the downstream procurement such as Ningxia Baofeng.
Industry chain: formaldehyde: this month, the domestic formaldehyde market presents a wide range of shocks. At the beginning of the month, during the Qingming holiday, the atmosphere of stock up in domestic formaldehyde Market before the holiday is general, and terminal enterprises are rational in purchasing. After the festival, the upstream methanol tentative push up driven by formaldehyde companies have followed up. The market will show the mentality of buying up and not buying down. After the end of the festival, the terminal will replenish one after another, and the on-site transaction is OK. In the downstream area, China’s wood processing products are mainly exported to the United States and Europe. The continuation of international public health events is crucial to the recovery of downstream wood panel factory products. At present, the export of wood processing products continues to be limited, which makes the demand for formaldehyde in the wood processing market rapidly decline. Near the end of the month, the exchange atmosphere of formaldehyde products in the field gradually weakened, and the terminal demand continued to be weak.
Acetic acid: the domestic acetic acid market rose by 450-620 yuan / ton in April. Before the Qingming holiday, the domestic acetic acid market fell to the lowest price of the whole year, and the price has been below the cost line. However, after the Qingming holiday, the failure of Yankuang plant in Shandong Province and the load reduction of manufacturers in Henan Province led to the intensification of spot supply in the market. Meanwhile, the low level of raw methanol rebounded, and the acetic acid supplier pushed up the offer, driving the transaction price in the acetic acid Market gradually higher. After the early period of continuous decline, there is no acetic acid reserve in the hands of downstream factories and middlemen. Under the optimistic attitude of the latter period of acetic acid, traders and downstream factories have limited shipments to promote the transaction price of acetic acid to go up in succession. In the middle and early period of the month, mainstream manufacturers have announced the maintenance time, focusing on the end of April and the beginning of May. In the later period of supply, traders are actively replenishing, purchasing and pushing The price of acetic acid rose to the end of April.
Dimethyl ether: this month, the market price of dimethyl ether is up and down, and the price is up and down. At the beginning of the month, the price of crude oil soared, driving the prices of methanol in the upper reaches, liquefied gas and dimethyl ether in the lower reaches to rise rapidly, promoting the enthusiasm of terminal procurement, and the price of dimethyl ether continued to rise. However, since April 8, the price rise has slowed down, prices in many regions have been running stably, and prices in the southwest region have shown signs of reduction, mainly due to the sluggish demand in the region and the difficulty of strong stimulation of terminal enthusiasm. After entering the middle of the year, due to the sharp rise in propane price, the price rose to 1000 yuan per ton, and civil gas and other related products began to rebound strongly on April 13, supporting the continuous increase in the price of dimethyl ether. Among them, Henan region saw the most significant increase, with BMW, xinlianxin and other mainstream enterprises raising their prices for several consecutive days. After entering the late ten days, the crude oil price began to plummet, leading to the collapse of terminal purchasing confidence, most of them left the market to wait and see, and the actual transaction was limited.
Industry: according to the price monitoring of the business agency, there are four commodities in the list of price rise and fall of bulk commodities in April 2020, among which the top three commodities are liquefied gas (4.99%), MTBE (4.92%) and methanol (3.59%). There are 12 kinds of commodities falling on a month on month basis, with 6 kinds of commodities falling by more than 5%, accounting for 37.5% of the monitored commodities in the sector; the top three products falling are WTI crude oil (- 25.05%), asphalt (- 23.39%) and naphtha (- 18.96%). This month’s average rise and fall was – 6.46%.
3、 Future forecast
From the perspective of business community: on the positive side, the price of domestic methanol fell sharply in late April, which has fallen below the cash flow cost in most regions. Some enterprises with high cost consider parking response; methanol to olefin integrated unit plans to purchase methanol. On the negative side, the international oil price once fell to a negative number in April, the market panic spread, and investors’ interest was not high; the methanol to olefin maintenance was centralized, and the purchase volume was significantly reduced; the traditional downstream demand did not improve, especially formaldehyde and MTBE; the production of most international methanol plants was stable, and the import volume is expected to remain high in May June. The public health emergency triggered international financial risk aversion, and the collapse of oil price caused by the epidemic was very adverse to the trend of domestic energy chemical products. Methanol market will also fluctuate in the short term, constantly testing the production cost of the plant. At present, methanol supply and demand are unbalanced. Methanol analysts of the business association predict that the domestic methanol market will continue to decline in the short term.