IHS Chemical Company recently on the U.S. olefins, aromatics market analysis to determine , by means downtime , as well as some cracking feedstock lightweight product overcapacity , U.S. olefins, aromatics market structure will be reconstructed in the next segment ~ time . IHS said the arrival of the cracker maintenance season will make the United States of ethylene and propylene prices remain firm until April , but Williams has announced its Louisiana gaisima cracker restart postponed until June , will make ethylene supply maintain tension ; U.S. cracker feedstock lightweight trend , leading to a lack of supply of aromatics and propylene ; affected by too little inventory , January U.S. benzene spot prices hit a record high , but with the arrival in March of imported goods, the United States benzene price from historical highs ; suffer substantial expansion of the Asian paraxylene (PX) prices will continue to fall until 2015 .
Ingredients: low inventory support prices
IHS said, by the unusually cold weather, current U.S. natural gas prices very strong , February 19 exceeded 600 U.S. dollars / million British thermal units , the highest in nearly five years, a new high . Since natural gas inventories fell sharply in urgent need to re-fill the library , so even if the weather gets warmer future U.S. natural gas prices are unlikely to fall sharply , only fell back from a high place in winter . IHS expects the U.S. ethane prices will come down with gas prices fell , propane and butane prices will be lower than in other parts of the world , but the new liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) terminal will help ease the propane and butane prices down pressure.
Ethylene : 4 months ago remain strong
IHS predicts that U.S. ethylene prices in April of this year will remain strong. The company is responsible for olefins business executives Steve Levan duoweiji said April-May this year, the United States has three sets of cracker will be planned downtime , market supply will decrease , but the demand will remain strong. He expects U.S. ethylene prices from April to play in June will be a slight decline , because by then cracker maintenance downtime will resume production, while exports will tend to weak downstream PVC .
Current U.S. ethylene prices have held firm , but compared with the end of a sharp upward trend has been greatly eased. Affected by last summer ‘s explosion Williams Company Gai Sima cracker , the U.S. ethylene market tensions . From Texas to Louisiana Evangeline ethylene pipeline shut down further reducing the supply of ethylene Louisiana , resulting in the state of Texas ethylene prices higher than the 7 to 15 cents / lb . Prestige
Lian Williams Company Gai Sima cracker planned in April to resume production , but recently announced that it will resume production was delayed until June . The earliest Evangeline ethylene pipeline will be re- commissioned by the second quarter.
Propylene: gains will tend to moderate
IHS senior director of global olefins business Chuck Kyle said , assuming no cases of unplanned production downtime main device appears , then the next few months, U.S. propylene prices will tend to moderate the rate of increase , which rose sharply in recent years, the U.S. propylene prices the situation is different , indicating that the market is adapting to propylene tight supply situation .
Kyle said, by the buyer to replenish inventory and equipment downtime before the impact of the stockpile , the U.S. propylene prices usually rally appeared to ease in the first half . However, in the past four years , propylene prices rose sharply , the current high prices have risen again if a sharp rise in the downstream consumers will bear, buy enthusiastic market will subsequently fall.
Affected cracker feedstock lightweight trend , the U.S. propylene supply tensions , but the market is adapting to this change. Kyle said: “propylene consumer companies have purchased in advance in December last year, this year’s amount , in order to ensure the establishment of propylene and propylene derivatives Inventory Essentially, propylene supply in North America is very limited , manufacturers can not really . a substantial increase in the price to stimulate additional production , as ethane feedstock cost advantage to become producers select cracker feedstock . ”
Last December the U.S. propylene contract prices rose 4 cents / lb in January rose again 4 cents / lb , but the price in February fell 1 cents / lb , the current U.S. polymer grade propylene contract price was 73.5 cents / pounds.
Benzene : a desire to supplement imports
By the light of the impact of cracker feedstock , benzene market performance in North America will also be more complex , IHS said in January this year after the stock fell to a record low, U.S. benzene spot prices reaching record highs , but with the March of imported goods arrived in the United States benzene spot prices are expected to return to normal levels.
IHS aromatics business manager Chris McCloskey said weak device downtime , operational failures, and by the end of destocking and other factors make profits naphtha reforming the United States benzene production in the fourth quarter of last year fell to 365 million gallons or less , the highest since the lowest level since the global financial crisis , while benzene inventory levels fell to a record low of 75 million gallons . Affected by Jan. 16 U.S. benzene spot prices hit $ 5.55 / gallon highs , while in February the United States benzene contract price climbed to $ 5,09 / gallon, only lower than in January 2013 reached a record high of 7 cents / gallon.
PX; surplus caused prices losing streak
U.S. PX contract price in February 2013 reached 83.5 cents / lb down after nearly two years to a high point in January 2014, the contract price has dropped to 69.75 cents / lb . IHS expects the U.S. PX contract price downward trend will continue into the second half of 2015 , when prices fell to 61.50 cents / lb , and then began to rebound .
According to IHS recently released ” 2014 Global PX market,” the report said , resulting in a continuous decline in the American PX contract price problem is not weaker demand , global demand is growing at an average annual PX 4% to 5.5% growth rate , mainly new capacity led to a substantial increase in supply . IHS is responsible for naphtha, aromatics feedstock and PX operations manager , said Nick Lagos , 2014 – 2015 global PX production capacity will be increased by more than 5 million tons per year scale, which is about three times the growth rate of demand .
Most of the new capacity will occur in Asia, the Asian region currently has the world’s largest PX demand areas . PX can cause a substantial expansion of the global PX device operating rates decline , IHS expects global PX device operating rate of about 85 per cent from 2015 to 2016 to 70% in 2012 .
Lagos believes , PX Another consequence could lead to a significant expansion of the production , including product prices and profitability to decline, thus contributing to a massive restructuring of the industry . PX industry over the next five years to restructure the global production capacity will reach one eighth of the world’s total production capacity of PX 2013 .(http://www.lubonchem.com supply)
