How will polyester polymerization rate fare

The appearance of the epidemic near the Spring Festival hit market and reversed the tendency on polyester market.

Downstream companies successively shut down for holiday in mid-Jan, and more polyester units started having turnaround, but most finished maintenance before the Lunar New Year holiday, with the polyester polymerization rate staying around 74%. Some polyester units were supposed to resume operation in early-Feb, and the polyester run rate was anticipated to be under upward course, which was estimated to near 85% in Feb before the Spring Festival holiday.

However, the recovery of companies was delayed affected by the epidemic. Units that intended to resume operation in early-Feb mostly postponed it into Feb 10 and afterward. Some polyester companies witnessed apparently ascending stocks amid high run rate during the Spring Festival holiday, and the inventory burden continued heightening after the recovery of end-users being delayed. Besides, price of crude oil and petrochemical products has obviously declined dragged down by demand, so the inventory at hand faced devaluating pressure. Besides, the supply of accessories was in shortage in some companies on constrained logistics, also impacting the normal production. Under such circumstance, more polyester units cut production or started maintenance, especially big companies. The daily production decreased by more than 1000 tons in some big enterprises. Therefore, the polyester polymerization rate accelerates reducing, at 61% now. 2 units will shut down for turnaround in the second half of Feb, and there is no other news on production curtailment or turnaround temporarily.