Benzene: Continuation of the shock finishing trend

After a month of falling and sorting out the domestic benzene market, after entering December, it began to compete for long and short tug-of-war, and the market that fell in the first week began to rebound
in the second week.
According to the data of the business agency on December 23, the quotation of pure benzene in Shandong is 6500~6550 yuan (ton price, the same below).

Industry insiders believe that the pure benzene market may continue the shock finishing mode
.

"This round of volatility is mainly due to the mixed downstream, consumption began to appear unbalanced, coupled with the relatively stable operating rate of pure benzene enterprises, and the rising port inventory, social circulation can ensure sufficient supply of the market status
.
" Under the background that the peak of the current epidemic is approaching and may affect the start of some industrial chain enterprises, the possibility of a sharp rise or fall in the pure benzene market is not large, and the probability of the market maintaining shock sorting at this stage is relatively large
.
Shao Huiwen, a senior market commentator, analyzed
.

The downstream market is mixed

According to the statistics of Henan Chemical Industry Network, as of December 15, the profit levels of the main products of the downstream industry chain of pure benzene such as styrene, adipic acid and phenol were 350 yuan, 500 yuan and 280 yuan respectively, and only the profit of aniline products was about 2800 yuan, while cyclohexanone, maleic anhydride and caprolactam were all in the loss range of 500~1500 yuan, and the industry's demand for pure benzene raw materials had a weakening trend
.

Shao Huiwen said that the market trend of pure benzene downstream products is an important indicator
to support the domestic pure benzene market.
As a product that accounts for a large proportion of pure benzene consumption, styrene was in a state of small profit of 50 yuan per ton in the first week of December
.
The increase in the profitability of styrene products can form a positive support for the future market of benzene, which is also one of the positive drivers for the slight rebound of
benzene after the second week of December.
However, nearly half of the downstream products of pure benzene are still running at a loss, which will inhibit the continued rebound of pure benzene in the future market
.

Production and sales are in a phased balance

It was learned from the sales departments of PetroChina and Sinopec that the operating rate of petroleum benzene plant is more than 74%, and the operating rate of hydrogenated benzene is about
57%.

"Based on the current situation of market demand, domestic pure benzene can basically meet market demand and is near
the phased balance point.
" Li Peixin, purchasing director of Jiangsu Dipu Technology Co.
, Ltd.
, said that there are still many uncertainties in the superimposed market, downstream enterprises are cautious in purchasing, and there are not many large procurement orders at present, which have prompted the pure benzene market to pull back and sort out
.

Li Peixin reflected that near the end of the year, especially in Shandong and other places, georefinery enterprises began to operate flexibly in sales strategies, and prices will also make some adjustments, such as December 15~16, some georefinery enterprises in Shandong timely raised their quotations according to local demand, to more than 6600 yuan, higher than Sinopec's listed price
of 6500 yuan.
At the same time, once some local refineries find signs of oversupply in the market, they will take the lead in reducing shipments, and the pace of regional market shipments begins to be inconsistent, indicating that enterprises have divergent expectations for the future market, which has also become a factor in the formation of
market shock patterns.

Port inventories continue to rise

Data show that as of December 13, Jiangsu's pure benzene stocks were 170,000 tons, a sharp increase of 240%
from mid-October.
"The large number of imports from low-priced sources has led to a continuous increase in port inventories, while also continuing to weaken the domestic market
.
" Henan trader Li Bing said that a large part of the large increase in port inventory is fixed by enterprises, which will not impact the domestic market in a short period of time, but will also have a restraining effect
on the market.

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, China imported 46.
74 million tons of crude oil in November this year, a growth rate of 2.
3 percentage points
slower than the previous month.
At the same time, the performance of the European and American crude oil markets was relatively weak, and the US Energy Information Administration surged 10.
231 million barrels of crude oil inventories on December 9, the largest weekly increase since March 2021, which also seriously affected investment transactions
in the crude oil market.
In the future, the correlation between the trend of the crude oil market and benzene is expected to strengthen again, and it is expected that the shock finishing may be the main tone
of the benzene market in the near future.