Direct-spun PSF market overview after Spring Festival holiday super fine Polyester Staple Fiber

Direct-spun PSF market did not welcome a good start after Spring Festival holiday. On the contrary, moderate discounts appeared in direct-spun PSF trading amid intensive replenishment before the holiday and weakly volatile polyester feedstock after the holiday.

However, direct-spun PSF plants showed high activeness to resume operation as planned despite the weakness. At present, the operating rate of direct-spun PSF plants has recovered to over 80%. Other plants also planned to restart on around Feb 19. If so, the operating rate is expected to improve to 85% or above later.

Relatively, the run rate of downstream spinners recovered slowly and mostly reached 60-70% with higher at 80-90% and lower at 20-30%. Their stockpiles of raw materials can be used to late or end-Feb. Therefore, under the background of soft market trend, they were mainly consuming previous stockpiles and stood on the sidelines.

With the time of replenishment coming and PSF inventory accumulating more quickly after the run rate increased, trading sentiment on direct-spun PSF market will strengthen and the market direction will be clear.

Conjecture 1. Polyester feedstock continues to be volatile to weak and direct-spun PSF speeds up to decline. When it touches the bottom in end-Feb, downstream spinners restock intensively. Entering Mar, polyester feedstock moves up due to maintenance of PX units. On the other hand, orders of downstream plants recover and China-US negotiation achieves success, promoting demand to turn better. Thus, direct-spun PSF will fluctuate high in Mar.

Conjecture 2. China-US trade war sustains and polyester feedstock keeps volatile in narrow rood. Direct-spun PSF price fluctuates downward amid accumulating inventory.

As a whole, there are three points noteworthy-polyester feedstock trend, the result of China-US negotiation on trade war and PSF inventory accumulation in the plants.