Methanol prices may gradually rises

Since April, the spot price of methanol has been hovering at the bottom for nearly five months, and futures prices are still in a near-low-far-high pattern.

Methanol futures prices peaked in mid-October 2018, and then experienced a round of nearly 2 years of decline, hitting a new low in early April 2020 since listing. In the first half of this year, China's methanol producers were affected by COVID-19. China's coal-based methanol accounted for more than 70% of the total, completely costly, upstream manufacturers have been forced to stop for maintenance in the face of long-term losses, operating rate decreased to 56.78% in mid-July, and only recently rose to 69.60% due to the recovery of downstream demand.

In terms of mainland inventory, except for Inner Mongolia individual enterprises inventory pressure is greater, Guanzhong and Shanxi overall inventory pressure is not great. In addition, freight rates have continued to rise recently due to rainfall and extreme weather. Therefore, in the context of the global economic stabilization and recovery, it is believed that the price of methanol is at a historical bottom and the probability of significant downward movement is small.