PX Behind The Big Crash?

This year, the PX market is an eventful year. It has gone through a lot of ups and downs.

First, we review the ups and downs experienced by PX.

In March 11th, the Richter scale 9 earthquake occurred in the northeastern waters of Japan and triggered a tsunami. The supply of PX was reduced by nearly 100 million tons due to the closure of the earthquake. The supply of raw materials to the PX market was hit hard after the Japanese earthquake. The price of Asian PX rose to a record high.

But then the PX market prices did not continue to rise sharply as the market forecast, but after a straight slide.

Since July, there have been many accidents in domestic PX installations.

In mid July, a fire broke out in CNOOC Huizhou refinery, resulting in the shutdown of the PX plant with an annual output of 840 thousand tons.

In July 30th, the Yunlin maoliao six light factory area in Formosa Plastics Group started fire in the early morning, but only 4 days from the last fire. This is also the seventh time of the accident in Formosa Plastics for a year. The PX capacity of the factory is 270 thousand tons / year.

In August 13th, the typhoon "plum blossom" attacked Dalian, and the dam was destroyed. In the afternoon of August 14th, the PX project was decided to stop immediately by the Dalian municipal government, and it was officially decided that the project would be relocated.

It is understood that the annual production capacity of Fu Jia Dahua PX project is 700 thousand tons, which is currently the largest monomer aromatics and petrochemical project in China, and its PX plant capacity currently accounts for about 8.4% of the total PX capacity in mainland China.

The continuous shutdown and overhaul of PX devices at home and abroad, as well as frequent unexpected shutdown, have led to a tight supply in Asia, which has stimulated the high volatility of PX market and the market price has been pushing up for nearly two months.

Of course, we do not rule out the artificial speculation factors caused by such incidents, but we can also see that the tight supply of PX market is still expected.

In addition to the impact of domestic shutdown, there will be a parking repair in Asia between 9 and October, including the annual capacity of 3 million tons in Thailand, Japan and Korea.

In addition, it is reported that five ministries and commissions such as the national development and Reform Commission recently issued the "urgent notice on strengthening safety and environmental protection of sensitive products such as PX (p-xylene)", calling for safe and environmental inspection of dangerous chemicals and improving the entry threshold for industry.

The impact of the policy on the PX industry is more obvious, or will cause serious obstacles to the expansion process of PX capacity in China.

At present, the consumption of PX is mainly concentrated in the world.

In addition, next year is still PTA capacity intensive.