The FOB Korea benzene marker surged $102/mt, or 12.4% week on week, to be analyzed at a 25-month high of $926/mt Tuesday, amidst firm Chinese demand as well as couple of spot availability in the FOB Korea market.
It was last analyzed any greater at $972/mt FOB Korea on November 27, 2014, according to S&P Global Platts data.
Benzene prices in Asia have been floating below $700/mt with most of 2016, climbing up over $900/mt just once in December at $910/mt on December 8, 2016, as well as balancing at $641.58/ mt FOB Korea in 2016, according to Platts information. The surge in costs over the past month has been driven mostly by strong need for prompt freights in China, as deliveries were postponed because of limited vessel accessibility and also bad weather at the major discharge ports in East China.
Benzene prices in East China's domestic market were last heard at Yuan 7,800-7,900/ mt ($944.04-$956.14/ mt) Tuesday, up from Yuan 7,100-7,200/ mt ($862.23-$874.37/ mt) last Tuesday.
Supply levels in East China's onshore storage tanks were heard to be at around 33,500 mt on January 6-- a lot less than the regular 80,000-100,000 mt seen for a lot of 2016.
industrial water treatment chemicals triggered traders to seek more February and March packing material as they anticipated Chinese import demand would certainly endure even after the Lunar New Year vacations amid positive downstream margins.
The surge in purchasing rate of interest, however, can not be satisfied by supply as several investors had currently allocated their place cargoes in term contracts, while Northeast Asian producers were keeping back on making spot offers, waiting for costs to optimal.
Some resources, though, were much less favorable about the domestic China market as an approximated 200,000 mt of Northeast Asian benzene and also over 20,000 mt of deepsea-origin benzene were anticipated to get here from second-half January onwards.
But also for the current week, the boom in FOB Korea benzene prices was anticipated to stay also if China stopped absorbing freights, as the FOB United States Gulf Coastline costs were climbing which might open up the arbitrage from East.
FOB USG Q2 benzene cost climbed 7 cents from Monday, however leapt 46 cents week on week to be assessed at 322 cents/gallon Tuesday, or $962.78/ mt.
Tighter supply and a closed arbitrage to the US from the East had actually pressed the FOB USG marker to strike a 25-month high on Tuesday, Platts data revealed.
However whether the East-West arbitrage window would open stayed unpredictable, as downstream styrene monomer plants in the United States were heard to be arranged for successive turn-arounds in the first-quarter of 2017.