What can we expect of PTA plant restart

There are talks about the pending restart of Hanbang’s 2.2 million mt/yr PTA plant on Jun 10-15. According to the sources, the plant is more likely to restart around Jun 15, which is expected to have great effect on recent PX and PTA markets.

It can be seen from the chart below that starting from the day when Hanbang’s PTA plant was shut (May 20), PTA-PX spread had been widening obviously while PX-naphtha spread been declining to hit record low.

The divergence in PTA-PX and PX-naphtha spread came as a result of changes in supply and demand fundamentals.