PTA producers announced maintenance plans since mid-February

Due to the continuous decline of margin, more PTA producers announced maintenance plans since mid-February. Yisheng, Hengli, Yizheng, Energy Investment and Fuhaichuang all have production cut plans in March and April. The supply has started to shrink and PTA inventory gradually reduces in March. However, the short-term sharp rise of raw materials, and the constrained terminal demand put the PTA margin into negative territory. In the actual production process, PTA producers usually purchase some PX spot in addition to the contract goods. Due to the ship schedule, this part of spot is purchased in advance. In addition, most PTA plants also have raw material inventory, therefore, short-term loss is lower than the calculation based on spot