apparent divergence may appear in the second half of year

Domestic and export demand both rebounded sharply in the second half of 2020. In the first half of 2022, domestic demand rose weakly while export dropped, and overall upward momentum was slow. Jul and Aug are traditional slack season. Demand may not grow much, while speculative demand is likely to improve later if feedstock price stabilizes and demand weakly increases as current PFY stocks are low among downstream plants. We expect it may emerge in end-Jul or Aug and actual demand improvement needs to wait the coming of traditional peak season in Sep and Oct, while the increase in the peak season is likely to be lower than anticipated (high stocks need to be solved and demand may rise limitedly).