Recently, international oil prices have plummeted.The price of light crude oil futures for September delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchangehas fallen to close to 90 US dollars, and The price of London Brent crude oil futures for delivery in October also fell to nearly $96, down more than 20% from this year’s highest level.
But at the same time, PTA showed rare strength, and the futures09 contract remained at 5800 Above the high level, how long can such a high level be sustained?
Crude Oil Diving
The plunge in international oil prices is mainly due to two aspects.
First, the aftereffects of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes are emerging. Although through a series of publicity, the Federal Reserve first adopted the expectation of raising interest rates by 100 basis points, but later it became expected to raise interest rates by 75 basis points. After it was implemented, it seemed to have become an interest rate cut by 25 basis points under the hype of the media. But the laws of economics are there. Raising interest rates will bring back the US dollar, which will suppress the prices of commodities. After the hype has passed and the wave of people in the market who are “making quick money” have left, the price of crude oil will eventually fall back.
Second, the market is bearish on future demand. Everyone knows what the current global economy is like. When the new crown epidemic first broke out, the United States and Europe could issue bonds and print money, but this behavior is not endless. Printing money is equivalent to overdrafting currency credibility, and now after raising interest rates, In the future, just paying back the interest will be a huge expense. Therefore, money cannot be printed forever. When money cannot be printed, the consumer market will inevitably shrink significantly, which will lead to a series of chain reactions and cause an economic recession.
To make a digression here, the United States is now making every effort to get dollars back. The Russia-Ukraine war wants to harvest Europe, and now it wants to harvest China. Now that the U.S.’s own economy is getting worse and worse, and inflation is getting higher and higher, there will inevitably be more fire-fighting behaviors in the future.
PTAShrinking demand
PTA is the main raw material for the production of polyester filament. The country is basically self-sufficient and does not need to rely on imports, especially2018Nan wave8000 After the skyrocketing price, polyester filament could only passively follow the increase. The high price of polyester filament was scolded by downstream weaving companies. Even if they were scolded, the money has not been transferred. Since then, domestic large-scale polyester factories have begun to build their own PTA supplies, which has also resulted in PTA Production capacity has been rising all the way.
According to the original plan, the production cycle of PTA basically coincides with the production cycle of downstream polyester yarn. Although there will be a certain excess capacity in the early stages of production expansion, as market demand grows, Things will always get better.
But what I didn’t expect was that with the advent of the new crown epidemic, the demand for textiles decreased instead of increasing. In the first two years, European and American countries were able to maintain demand by printing money, but printing money is unsustainable after all. When money printing stopped, demand shrank significantly, and with it the demand for PTA dropped significantly.
The operating rate has been falling
Of course, PTAThe factory is not without response. Since the end of June, PTA’s overall operating rate has been declining. 6month30 day, PTA installed The activation rate is still around 78% and has reached 7 months28Day, the activation rate dropped to about 70%. 8month1 day, YadongPTA The unit is running at reduced load on 8 month2 day. Jiaxing Petrochemical has another 150 Ten thousand tonsPTAThe production capacity has been suspended… It can be seen that as time goes by, the operating rate is still declining. Next, it is estimated that Will soon fall below 70%.
From the perspective of supply and demand, even if a series of production shutdowns and construction restarts are passed, PTAThe current oversupply situation has not been resolved, and there are no signs of improvement in the future.Gold speculation has become an important reason for the strength of futures.
But like most situations, the market caused by financial speculation is only temporary, and its prices will eventually return to fundamentals. The continuous reduction of equipment production may delay the arrival of this point in time, but the global economic downturn, terminal As long as the general environment of shrinking demand does not change and the Fed and the European Central Bank continue to raise interest rates, it will be difficult to reverse the downward trend.
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