Price Trend

Domestic aggregated MDI market continued to decline. According to the sample data monitored by business associations, the average market price of aggregated MDI was 17 750 yuan/ton at the beginning of the month, and 13 625 yuan/ton at the end of the month. The price of aggregated MDI fell 23.24% in the month, which was 15.48% lower than that of the same period last year.

II. Market Analysis

Products: Domestic aggregate MDI market prices fell sharply all the way in May. Ring prices fell by about 5,000 yuan/ton from the end of April. At present, the market price is around 12,500 yuan/ton for Shanghai goods and 13,500 yuan/ton for Wanhua goods. Compared with the “boom” in January-April, the market fell into a lonely “lick wound” state in May. After the return of May holidays, the market began to explore the mode, the social inventory is large, the number of people selling goods is larger than the number of buyers, the demand consumption situation is very poor, the market turnover is very bad under the mentality of buying up and not buying down. Despite the subsequent introduction of a stop-drop policy by BASF manufacturers to adjust the guiding price, Wanhua manufacturers “silently”, and Koth founders “go their own way” continue to reduce the weekly guiding price, falling at an unstoppable rate. Towards the end of the month, with the publication of listing prices, manufacturers have little market intentions, business mentality generally returns to rationality, the hard bubble off-season in June is approaching gradually, maintenance devices are returning to production, new sources of market “surge” into the market, coupled with a large number of social stocks accumulated in the first half of the year, downstream demand consumption is much worse than in previous years, and aggregated MDI market prices are expected to face succession again. Continue to explore the possibilities and watch the latest developments of manufacturers and businesses.

Industry chain: raw materials, pure benzene: the price of pure benzene oscillated upward in the month. Earlier this month, the impact of Tehrer’s comments in the United States, commodity prices and oil prices fell, leading to a weakening of the focus of pure benzene, East China once fell below 4400 yuan per ton. In mid-month, Hengli’s shipment tended to be stable, which compensated for the reduction in maintenance of Northwest equipment. The price of East China remained stable near 4500 yuan/ton. Affected by industry meetings, market turnover is weak. In late January, the decline of port stocks gave the market an opportunity to speculate. Meanwhile, the large increase in external prices also supported the domestic pure benzene rise.

Industry: According to the price monitoring of business associations, in May 2019, there were 21 commodities rising annually in the chemical sector, of which 9 commodities increased by more than 5%, accounting for 12.2% of the monitored commodities in the sector. The top three commodities were epichlorohydrin (11.73%), nitric acid (9.51%) and butadiene (9.15%). There are 48 kinds of products with a decline of more than 5%, accounting for 31.1% of the monitored products in this sector. The products with the first three declines are hydrochloric acid (-60.56%), sulfuric acid (-42.25%) and TDI (-26.21%). This month’s average rise and fall was -3.9%.

3. Future Market Forecast

Business Cooperative Perspective: The market is constantly emerging, the demand side is difficult to get better, and most of the future market prices are expected to decline negatively. Business Aggregate MDI analysts expect that short-term domestic aggregate MDI market prices are mainly weak consolidation, closely watching the market turnover and MDI related products market situation.