The Chinese Market May Lead The Future Price Trend Of PTA

"In the future, China's petrochemical industry will face many pressures from the macro environment, crude oil, exchange rate and trade disputes," he said. On September 2nd, 2019 China (Zhengzhou) International Futures forum, "PTA sub forum", held in Zhengzhou, Zhu Yang, director of the information and marketing department of China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation, said.

In the near future, the international macro market environment is complex and changeable, and the financial market is also affected. The prices of crude oil and other commodities fluctuate frequently, and the national exchange rate fluctuates fiercely, which has brought about a great impact on the production enterprises in the PTA industry chain.

Zhu said that if we want to analyze the development prospect of petrochemical industry in the background, we must first pay attention to the trend change of macro environment. "In 2012, China's economy has entered a new normal. GDP growth has slowed down year by year. At present, PPI has fallen back to CPI. The prices of most of the industrial products show a downward trend compared with the same period. In addition, pressure will also come from the PTA raw material end, namely, crude oil and exchange rate changes, Sino US trade disputes and other aspects. Zhu said.

In fact, one of the main problems faced by PTA enterprises is that the fluctuation of raw material prices has great influence. "When we review the profit level of PTA enterprises in recent years, we can find that the industry efficiency in 2018 is very good, but by 2019, it has dropped by 18.3%. One of the most important variables is price, which is closely related to the price of crude oil. Zhu said.

Simon - Bessie, President of the oil trade of the BP Singapore trading center, said the increase in global oil production is mainly driven by the United States due to the exploitation of shale oil. "At present, the most important factor affecting global crude oil is shale oil exploitation in the United States. The exploitation of shale oil in the United States has been going on for several years. Now in Texas and other states, relatively large scale mining has been carried out, which greatly promoted the oil production in the United States. "

"However, due to factors such as logistics, shale oil is still in the US market, but with the development of international logistics, many shale oil will enter the international crude oil market in the future. This situation is expected to take place after 2020. In addition, it is noteworthy that the cost of crude oil exploitation in the United States is gradually decreasing, and the new shale oil products will be highly competitive internationally, which may have an impact on global crude oil prices. However, this does not necessarily mean that international oil prices will drop. On the contrary, prices may also rise. Simon Bessie said.

As one of the most important commodities, crude oil is very important to China's economic development. Zhu said, based on this, our country needs to make a long-term layout consideration for the acquisition of resources. "Although Sino US trade friction has some negative impact on China's petrochemical industry, from another point of view, trade friction is a development opportunity for China's short board projects." Zhu explains that in the petrochemical industry, we can make efforts in the field of coal chemical industry.

As a matter of fact, the resource condition of "lack of oil, less gas and more coal" determines the development potential and space of modern coal chemical industry. Zhu said that the new coal chemical industry can be used for coal to make ethylene glycol and many things that can replace oil resources. With the progress of technology, the cost of coal chemical industry will further decline, so coal chemical industry will have a very good alternative prospect in the future.

For the supply and demand trend of PTA itself, the serious surplus of capacity since 2015 has led to the trend of production capacity, and has now formed a new balance point, once again returning to a steady development situation. "When PTA finds the balance point, the most important factor affecting its price trend and profit trend is not the PTA market itself, but the raw material PX. With the large-scale operation of the world, PX manufacturers have been gradually reduced from their original profits to almost the cost line. China will continue to shrink because of its domestic PX capacity. This is especially important for PX producers in Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia. They may recover the balance of the market by reducing production and stopping production. Li Shufu, chief consultant of Wood McKenzie limited liability company, said at the meeting.

"China now has 76% of PX capacity and 95% of PTA capacity." Simon Bessie said that if we want to know the price trend of PTA in the future, we may need to pay more attention to the expansion of China's PTA market. In his view, the increase in PTA capacity in the second half of 2020 is likely to balance the increased PX capacity.