Entering 2022, the lack of demand was seriously restricted to the development of the Maleic anhydride market, so that the price decline became the norm, and the “Golden September Silver October” in the second half of the year has become the last sustenance of the maleic anhydride market, but it still needs to be cautious and optimistic.
In 2022, the maleic anhydride market decline is all obvious, the past highlight moment has disappeared, “price drop”, “loss”, “production” has become the high-frequency words in the mouth of the industry. From the perspective of price trend, taking the Jiangsu and Zhejiang market as an example, it hit a new high of 13300-13400 yuan/ton in the middle of February and then fluctuated all the way down, especially after the second half of June, it gave up resistance and went straight down, and there is still no sign of stopping the decline. By the close of August 5, the market price in Jiangsu and Zhejiang has fallen to 7100 yuan/ton, compared with the high of the year has fallen to 6250 yuan/ton, a decline of 46.82%, and if compared with the historical peak of 16600-17100 yuan/ton in mid-December 2021, it has fallen to 9750 yuan/ton, a decline of 57.86%. The word “cut in half” is not an exaggeration.
Insufficient demand, imbalanced supply and demand, and difficult to find support in the market.
Subject to the continued decline in the prosperity of the main terminal real estate industry, the demand for unsaturated resin and other downstream products has generally performed poorly since the beginning of this year, and there was further contraction in the middle and late second quarter, leading to the worsening of the imbalance between supply and demand in the maleic anhydride market.
The National housing sentiment index closed at 95.4 points in June, down 0.2 points from the previous month, the lowest in recent years and the lowest since 2016. The boom of real estate market continues to decline, and is closely related to the stone material, FRP construction situation of terminal facilities are also dull, especially after June in east China, south China and other major market has suffered extreme high temperature weather for a long time, outdoor construction progress slows, the industrial chain end flagging up after conduction lead to two weak unsaturated resin enterprise production and marketing, The time for new production capacity to be put into operation continues to be generally delayed, the phenomenon of burden reduction and production reduction in production enterprises is more frequent, the overall starting load continues to decline, and the consumption of maleic anhydride decreases. According to statistics, the average starting load of domestic unsaturated resin industry from January to July 2022 was only 23.9%, down 10 percentage points compared with the same period last year. The average monthly starting load from June to July was 28.6% and 25.75%, down 8.65 and 10.25 percentage points compared with the same period last year. Maleic anhydride market lack of demand end effective support, supply pressure further increases, the prices continue to fall.
The traditional peak season still calls for cautious optimism
Facing the current market trend of “endless decline”, people in the upstream and downstream markets generally hope to recover the demand brought by the traditional peak season of “gold nine silver ten” in the third and fourth quarters of the second half of the year. From the policy perspective, in order to promote the stabilization and recovery of the macro economy, the construction of old and new infrastructure such as transportation, water conservancy, urban renewal and new energy is expected to continue to make great efforts in the second half of the year, playing the role of economic “ballast”; As for the real estate market, the state will continue to promote the steady and sound development of the real estate market, support the demand for rigid and improved housing, strengthen the responsibilities of local governments, ensure housing delivery and ensure people’s wellbeing. With the implementation of relevant policies, it is expected that the downstream market demand in the second half of the year will be significantly better than the first half of the year.
However, although market participants on the “gold nine silver ten” high expectations, but the landing of good policy and the upward transmission of the terminal boom degree recovery still needs time, it is difficult to bring obvious demand increment in the short term. At the same time, with the increasing expectation of global economic recession, the international oil price is likely to fall in the second half of the year, which will also have a certain negative impact on the chemical market. Overall, for the “gold nine silver ten” market to cash still need to hold cautious optimistic expectations.