International Energy Agency Administrator Fatih Birol said on June 16 that in recent years, the global development of liquid natural gas has been very rapid, and the proportion of LNG facilities under construction in all countries exceeds that of pipeline transportation of natural gas; at the same time, the volume of trade has increased rapidly, especially in Asia. China is expected to overtake Japan as the world’s largest importer of liquefied natural gas. In 2025, nearly 50 countries will import liquefied natural gas.

Fatih Birol made this prediction at the “High-end Forum of Clean Power International Engineering Science and Technology 2019″ held in Beijing on the 16th.

He analyzed that 2018 was the fastest growing year for global primary energy demand. Half of the new energy demand is met by natural gas, followed by renewable energy and oil, coal and nuclear energy. China’s extensive “Blue Sky Project” and prevention and control of atmospheric pollution have led to a substantial increase in global natural gas demand.

“But at the rate of growth, global electricity demand is growing twice as fast as other energy sources, and our world is increasingly affected by electricity.” Fatih Birol said.

In his view, China’s photovoltaic power generation, wind power generation and related equipment manufacturing are at the highest level in the world, leading the development of related industries in the world. The Chinese government’s policy support for wind and photovoltaic power generation not only benefits China, but also benefits the whole world.

With the increasing global energy demand, environmental pressure is still increasing. In 2018, global carbon dioxide emissions reached an all-time high.

“Climate change is a huge challenge that cannot be solved by a single technology, nor by renewable energy alone. It requires the integration of technologies. We hope to continue to cooperate with China in renewable energy utilization, hydrogen energy, nuclear energy development and carbon dioxide capture and storage, so as to bring greater help to global environmental improvement. Fatih Birol said.

Surveillance data from the Business Association (100ppi.com) showed that the price of natural rubber had risen all the way by the end of April under the influence of “mixing rubber classification”, and had risen by 6.8% by May 10. The price of spot rubber had risen by 1000 yuan per ton since May, up by 10.34%.

Influencing factors:

1. The change of trade and economic environment has attracted much attention. May 13 – 15 Shanghai glue quotation shocks adjustment, a small margin, normal shipment of traders.

2. Short-term cutting in domestic rubber producing areas. Since last week, affected by high temperature, drought and mite hazards, some natural rubber production areas in China have been short-term cutting, and the supply of new rubber is tight.

3. High temperature and drought affect foreign producing areas. According to local news, also affected by high temperature and drought, the production of new rubber in Southeast Asian rubber producing countries such as India decreased, and the demand of local tire enterprises was strong, which expressed concern about future supply.

In summary, business analysts believe that the recent trade situation and the impact of new rubber cutting on the natural rubber market have attracted much attention. On the 15th, Shanghai Rubber Night Market opened up 1.7%, and on the 16th, Shanghai Rubber Night Market rose sharply by 500-600 yuan/ton, closing up by about 5.2%. Business Association monitoring, Tianjiao spot quotation rose, the distribution price generally increased by 500-600 yuan/ton, some traders said that the market rose too much, leading to “no quotation”. Follow-up continued to pay attention to the trade situation and weather conditions in domestic and foreign rubber areas.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) released its monthly crude oil market report on the 15th, cutting its global average daily oil demand growth forecast by 90,000 barrels to 1.3 million barrels in 2019.

The report predicts that global oil demand will average 100.4 billion barrels per day in 2019.

The report said that the global crude oil supply is facing great uncertainty due to the US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, the situation in Libya and the pollution of Russian oil pipelines to Europe.

The report shows that in April this year, the world’s average daily oil supply fell by 300,000 barrels to 99.3 million barrels. Among them, Canada, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijani and Iran experienced the largest decline in supply.

Starting last Wednesday, the plastic futures contract 1909 broke through the bottom track of the box oscillation of 8,200 yuan/ton, showing a cliff-like decline. In the past five trading days, the 1909 contract dropped to 7650 yuan/ton from 8200 yuan/ton, with a cumulative decline of more than 6.7%, the lowest since February 2016. Although on Wednesday, due to the short-term decline of futures prices is too large and too far away from the 5-day average, futures prices showed signs of stopping falling, but the weak characteristics are obvious, lack of upward momentum.

From the perspective of the average system, the 5-day, 10-day, 20-day, 40-day and 60-day average began to show divergent short-term pattern, highlighting the strong momentum of short-term price decline. In terms of MACD indicators, green column entities continue to appear, and the length of entities rapidly expands, suggesting that the short power is growing rapidly. In addition, DIFF and DEA indicators are running below zero, indicating that the short power is dominant. It is expected that future plastic 1909 contract will continue the downward trend.

In May, the price of magnesium ingot basically ran smoothly and fluctuated slightly.

According to data from business associations, the average market price of magnesium ingots on May 15 was 16900 yuan/ton, down 0.73% from 17,725 yuan/ton on May 1, and up 3.05% from the lowest price of 16,400 yuan/ton on January 9, 2019.

Since May, the price of magnesium ingots has fluctuated slightly, and the overall operation is relatively stable. It is reported that, on the one hand, based on the weak market demand, stable supply and demand, stable demand of downstream processing enterprises, a little stock in the early stage, more on-demand purchasing, magnesium prices rising weak; on the other hand, the main production area of magnesium ingot manufacturers inventory is not much, some manufacturers mainly pre-sale sales, spot inventory is not much, some manufacturers directly supply their own downstream factories, spot sales pressure. Not big, the manufacturers have strong willingness to bid.

Today’s cash tax quotation for magnesium ingots (99.9%, non-pickling, simple packaging) from major producing areas is as follows:

Fugu area has 16 650-16 900 yuan/ton of cash remittance with tax; Taiyuan area has 16 700-16 800 yuan/ton of cash remittance; Wenxi area has 16850-17 000 yuan/ton of cash remittance; Ningxia area has 16 700-16 900 yuan/ton of cash remittance.

Expected market outlook

Recently, the magnesium market has been on the low side, with few inquiries from magnesium enterprises in the main producing areas, mainly pre-shipment orders, and few new orders. Affected by poor downstream demand, some manufacturers have signs of downward shipment. However, based on the influence of raw material ferrosilicon and coal price factors, we will focus on the market to consider the changes of cost factors in the later period. It is expected that domestic magnesium ingot prices will be weak and stable in the short term.

Terminal demand has not improved, polyester enterprises may take the initiative to reduce the start-up rate. In addition, although the port ethylene glycol inventory in eastern China has declined in the past two weeks, the overall inventory is still at a historic high. Ethylene glycol prices are expected to continue their bearish trend.

Restricted by its own fundamentals, the price of ethylene glycol futures has shown a downward trend of oscillation since its listing on December 10 last year.

Maintaining high plant start-up rate

This year, the start-up rate of domestic ethylene glycol plant has remained relatively high. Although the Spring Festival holidays occurred during this period, it did not have much impact on the start-up of ethylene glycol plant. At the end of April, the ethylene glycol plant was centrally overhauled, and mainly coal-based plants. As of April 26, the weekly start-up rate of ethylene glycol plant was 81.59%, which was 0.97 percentage points lower than that of the same period last year, and 5.59 percentage points higher than that of the same period last year. As of April 30, the weekly start-up rate of coal-based ethylene glycol plant was 55.01%, which was 5.35 percentage points lower than that of the same period last year, with a slight decrease of 0.99 percentage points.

Polyester market “peak season is not prosperous”

After the downstream construction resumed at the end of February this year, the start-up rate of polyester factories and Jiangsu and Zhejiang looms remained at a high level. In April, the average starting rate of polyester chip cycle was 89.06%, which was 1.98 percentage points higher than that in March; the average starting rate of polyester staple fiber cycle was 83.42%, which was 3.13 percentage points lower than that in March; and the average starting rate of polyester filament cycle was 83.4%, which was 0.9 percentage points higher than that in March.

However, a high start-up rate does not mean an increase in demand. Although the current polyester market is in the traditional peak season from a time point of view, the trading situation has not significantly warmed up. In April, the average weekly production and marketing rate of polyester chips was 79.88%, up 10.63 percentage points from March; the average weekly production and marketing rate of polyester staple fiber was 88.2%, down 0.8 percentage points from March; the daily production and marketing rate of polyester filament was 110.91%, the lowest was 72.27%, down 7.09 percentage points and 1.73 percentage points from March, respectively.

Active start-up, but no significant improvement in terminal demand, resulting in a high level of inventory of various varieties in the polyester market. In April, the average inventory of polyester chips was 7 days, an increase of 0.5 days compared with March; the average inventory of polyester staple fiber was 6.9 days, a decrease of 1.1 days compared with March; the average inventory of POY, FDY and DTY of polyester filament was 13.7 days, 13.3 days and 19.8 days, respectively, an increase of 0.82 days, 0.55 days and 1.05 days compared with March.

Port Inventory Keeping New High

Since the beginning of the year, the ethylene glycol inventory of ports in East China has risen rapidly. On February 11, after the Spring Festival holiday, it exceeded 1 million tons, reaching 1.02 million tons, surpassing last year’s inventory peak. After that, inventory continued to accumulate and reached a peak of 1282,000 tons on April 11, an increase of 497,000 tons over the beginning of the year. As of May 5, the inventory of ethylene glycol ports in East China was 1.177 million tons, still at the highest level in recent two years.

Ethylene glycol inventory has been at a high level since this year. Historically, inventory in East China exceeded 1.1 million tons from February to March 2014, with a peak of only 1.76 million tons. Persistent high inventory leads to pressure on the futures price of ethylene glycol, which is also one of the important reasons for the weak operation of the futures price of ethylene glycol in recent years.

In summary, although the polyester market is in the traditional peak season, the terminal demand has not improved. Later, polyester enterprises may take the initiative to reduce the start-up rate to cope with the pressure of rising inventory. Under the negative pressure, the price of ethylene glycol in the future is difficult to get rid of the disadvantaged pattern.

Potassium sulphate was not expected because of the excessive carry-over stock in 2018. It did not appear in the spring market until mid-April. From the price performance, only that part of the market rose by 100-150 yuan, while most of the market prices barely maintained stability or even fell a lot, but the current market of potassium sulphate has indeed improved, water and salt bodies. The low price of the Department has not continued to fall, Mannheim’s inventory pressure has generally eased, and individual supplies have been tightened.

Unfortunately, it is still very difficult for potassium sulphate to drive the whole in part. On the one hand, although the price of water-salt system does not continue to decline, it has not yet recovered for the time being, and the price difference between water-salt system and Mannheim potassium sulfate is far greater than the normal level in the past; on the other hand, although the inventory pressure has eased, the overall supply is still relatively large, after a partial rise, the surrounding supply will be found, that is to say, there is no general and obvious shortage of supply and demand at present; Third, the fall in the price of potassium chloride has also made the price of potassium sulfate rise somewhat unjustifiable.

In summary, whether it is fluctuating potassium chloride or potassium sulfate, in some chaotic market situation, its price has not changed much, but is relatively stable.

At present, the long-term trend of potassium chloride and potassium sulfate is not very clear, but it is not expected that the temporary relative stability will last too long. In the short term (May and June), the price of potassium chloride will go downward while the price of potassium sulfate may rise. In the long run (the second half of the year), there is still the possibility of reversal. Potassium fertilizer market in 2019 is bound to be a very tangled year.

In the potassium sulfate market, with the rebound of low prices and the fall of high prices, the price of potassium sulfate in the whole country has been relatively concentrated. With the rapid summer overhaul of Rok and the start of tobacco bidding soon, the price of potassium sulfate in the water salt system is expected to rise to a reasonable level. If it is supplemented by good export, the overall price of potassium sulfate may rise further, even be separated from chlorination. Potassium has come out of a good independent market. However, there is a premise that there is a basic guarantee for the late market demand, and the decline of potassium chloride will not be too bad.

According to the Malaysian Bureau of Statistics released on May 13, Malaysia’s natural rubber production in March 2019 was 49465 tons, an increase of 6.6% over the same period last year, and a decrease of 16.2% over 59017 tons in February.

Data show that Malaysia’s Tianguo exports in March rose 29.6% to 53265 tons from 41102 tons in February. The main export destinations were China, accounting for 43.2% of the total exports, followed by Germany (12.0%), Finland (7.8%), the United States (4.8%) and Turkey (4.0%).

Malaysia’s Tianguo inventory at the end of March was 21792 tons, down 6.0% from 214771 tons at the end of February, according to the Bureau of Statistics.

The average price of concentrated latex in March was 474.19 centimeters/kg, up 15.5% from February, while that of Malaysian standard rubber SMR20 was 592.62 centimeters/kg, up 6.2% from February.

Malaysia’s domestic consumption of natural rubber in March was 43,770 tons, up 9.1% from 40,121 tons in February. The rubber glove industry is the main consumer, with a monthly consumption of 32,848 tons, accounting for 75.0% of the total consumption.

Market Overview

According to a large number of data monitored by business associations, the price of dichloromethane in Shandong rose sharply this week. At the beginning of the week, the average price of dichloromethane in Shandong was 3000 yuan/ton, and at the end of the week, the average price was 3400 yuan/ton, with an increase of 13.33% in the week.

quotations analysis

Products: This week, due to the overhaul of Jinling Chemical Industry in Shandong Province, the overall supply of dichloromethane market is tight. Enterprises and traders have limited shipments and low inventories. At present, the quotation of bulk water remittance in Shandong is around 3400 yuan/ton, 3800 yuan/ton in Jiangsu and 3750 yuan/ton in Jiangxi. In terms of start-up, at present, the time for Jinling chemical plant to be repaired and restored is uncertain; Dongying Jinmao fully loaded operation; Luxi chemical plant to start 60%; Jiangsu science and technology plant to start normal; Jiangxi science and technology plant to run normally, etc.

Industry chain: In the upstream, the natural gas market is gradually warming up, with a small 1.1% in a week, and the average price at present is about 3363 yuan/ton; the liquid chlorine market is stable and weak, and the reservoir pressure of enterprises is relatively large. Enterprises in North China offer more than 1 yuan/ton, subsidized freight is about 100 yuan/ton, and East China is affected by overhaul, reporting more than 500 yuan/ton. Domestic R410a market shocks adjustment, refrigerant downstream market demand is flat, mostly export orders.

Forecast for future market

Business Club dichloromethane data analysts believe that the overall start-up of dichloromethane production enterprises is low, spot supply is tight and inventory is low, although the current downstream market demand is flat, but will soon enter the peak demand season for refrigerants, dichloromethane market is expected to be strong in the near future.

Price Trend

According to the data from the business associations’list, the price of domestic dry-process aluminium fluoride Market declined this week, with an average market price of 9,500 yuan/ton at the beginning of the week and 9,333 yuan/ton at the end of the week, which was 1.75% lower than that of last week.

II. Market Analysis

Aluminum fluoride prices remained stable this week: at present, the price of aluminium fluoride in Henan is between 8500 and 9200 yuan/ton, while that in Shandong is between 8500 and 9200 yuan/ton. Zhengzhou Zerun Energy and Chemical Co., Ltd. quoted 8500 yuan/ton of aluminium fluoride, Shandong Luzeng Chemical Co., Ltd. 11000 yuan/ton of aluminium fluoride and Henan Zhongse Dongfang Shaoxing Industrial Co., Ltd. 9500 yuan/ton of aluminium fluoride.

Industry chain: This week, the price of hydrofluoric acid rose slightly. Enterprises reported that the spot supply of hydrofluoric acid in the market has decreased. Recently, the situation of on-site goods has improved. Some enterprises have low start-up rate of hydrofluoric acid plants and slightly increased ex-factory prices. However, the downstream market performance of aluminium fluoride is general, and the market price is close to the cost line. The market price of dry-process aluminium fluoride is still declining this week.

3. Future Market Forecast

Analysts of Aluminum Fluoride Industry of Business Society Chemical Branch believe that the price of hydrofluoric acid, the upstream raw material, has fallen to a higher level, and the price of Aluminum Fluoride is expected to rise next week.