Cost Benefits Support PTA Market’s “Strong Start”

February 24th, News

As of 2:15 p.m. on February 24, the most active PTA contract on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange rose by more than 3%, trading at 5,390 CNY per ton. The spot market followed suit. According to the commodity market analysis system, the spot price of PTA in the East China region on February 24 was 5,333 CNY per ton, up 2.93% from the previous trading day.

During the holiday period, crude oil prices performed strongly, providing favorable support to cost structures. The market remains concerned about the uncertainty in U.S.-Iran relations, and with no substantive progress yet made in Russia-Ukraine peace talks, international oil prices rose during the Spring Festival. On February 19, WTI and Brent crude oil futures closed up by 4.59% and 4.35%, respectively. On February 20, during trading, both crude oils reached intraday highs of $67.03 and $71.66 per barrel, hitting new highs in nearly half a year. Over the two-day period, the cumulative price increase exceeded 5%.

On the supply side, during the Spring Festival holiday, Yisheng New Materials’ 3.6-million-ton PTA plant was temporarily shut down on February 24 due to unforeseen circumstances and is currently undergoing recovery. The industry’s capacity utilization rate has stabilized at around 70%, thereby slowing the pace of PTA inventory accumulation. As of 2026, China has no plans to commission any new PTA plants, marking the start of a “window period” for industry capacity expansion. Meanwhile, downstream polyester production continues to expand, and the market is expected to move toward a tighter supply-demand balance.

On the demand side, in the short term, holiday-related cost support remains relatively strong, prompting many downstream polyester factories to raise their quotes to varying degrees. The end-market, however, is still largely in holiday mode. Before the Spring Festival, the operating rates in the filament spinning, weaving, and dyeing industries plummeted to just 10%–20%, and the polyester industry’s capacity utilization also fell sharply to around 76%. As the Spring Festival holiday comes to an end, strong expectations for the “Golden March and Silver April” period remain intact. In early March, Chinese textile and apparel enterprises will resume production and operations on a concentrated scale, and terminal orders are expected to gradually pick up, thereby driving a steady increase in polyester capacity utilization and boosting rigid demand procurement for PTA.

Analysts believe that crude oil prices have remained strong during the holiday, and after the holiday, products in the PTA chain mostly follow the upward trend. In the short term, oil prices will still be dominated by supply disruptions and geopolitical risks. Recently, with supply disruptions not yet fully resolved, escalating geopolitical risks, and strong expectations of OPEC pausing production increases, oil prices may experience wide fluctuations. In the downstream polyester market, as terminal enterprises gradually resume production and operations, and operating rates recover, there is a certain demand for raw material restocking, which will alleviate the continuous accumulation of PTA social inventory. It is expected that the PTA market will maintain a relatively strong outlook in the short term.