Introduction: Since New Year’s Day, positive news about vaccine progress has been frequent, the market is relatively optimistic about demand recovery expectations next year, market risk appetite has increased, and international oil prices have continued to rebound and break upward. During this period, warehouse receipts increased significantly under the weak basis of PTA, which led to tight supply of circulating goods. Coupled with the historical low, it strongly boosted the upward momentum of bull funds. During this period, the failure to restart the PX unit of CICC Petrochemical helped, and the spot price of PTA reached a new level. As the Spring Festival approaches, the market is adjusting after a short-term sharp rise. However, downstream polyester inventory pressure is small and macroeconomic factors are favorable, so the adjustment is expected to be limited.
Macro and crude oil: The global trade environment is expected to improve during the term of the new U.S. government, coupled with the success of the new U.S. fiscal stimulus plan Positive progress and positive progress in Sino-US trade have made the global economy improve, thus supporting crude oil demand expectations. OPEC+ major oil-producing countries have stated that they will strictly abide by their production reduction commitments, which also boosted market confidence, and the cost side of chemical products has been supported. However, the severe epidemic situation in Europe and the United States has forced many countries to strengthen control, and the market is still worried about the demand outlook. Quantitative easing by global central banks may remain the main tone of the market for some time to come, which will provide certain support for commodities. On the macro level, long and short are intertwined. Based on the financial attributes of PTA, this will still be a potential risk that affects spot prices.
Processing range: Recently affected by the rise in the cost of crude oil and PX, although the PTA spot has tight support, the spot price has not increased enough, and PTA processing The range shows a compression trend. On February 4, the PTA processing range was compressed to 357 yuan/ton. Excluding the cost caused by the increase in acetic acid, the actual processing range has been close to 300 yuan/ton, and the space for continued compression has been narrowed.
Inventory: The good processing interval also stimulates PTA production companies to keep their operations at a high level. Since 2021, the overall average load of domestic PTA operations has remained above 85% At a high level, product supply pressure continues unabated. As of the time of writing, the domestic social inventory has reached around 4.34 million tons, and the daily accumulated inventory is around 24,800 tons. It is expected that the overall social inventory of PTA will reach a new high of nearly 5 million tons by the end of February, which may restrict the upward space of futures prices.
Short-term expectations: It is roughly estimated that the average load of domestic PTA from January to March is high around 87%, and the actual output is 13.08 million tons. Affected by the Spring Festival maintenance, the average load of downstream polyester is 85 %, the low point of polyester production was in mid-February. The actual demand for PTA is expected to be 11.44 million tons. Excluding other demands and exports, the overall accumulated inventory is about 1.1 million tons. However, considering the rising crude oil and tight PX, PTA processing fees are showing a compression trend, there is not much pressure on downstream polyester inventories, and there is still a shortage of spot stocks in circulation, all of which support the current price of PTA. During this period, loose supply and demand are still the main constraints on the growth of PTA. Internal negative. </p
