Methanol's short-term boom will come to an end

The methanol installations overhauled in Shaanxi, Gansu, and Inner Mongolia have been restarted at the beginning of this week. In addition, the methanol installations restarted in northern Shaanxi have been able to supply considerable supply capacity. This week's price decline in the Northwest is also for the same reason.

Affected by factors such as the rapid decline in inventory in the port area, the decrease in mainland supply, and the improvement in downstream demand, recent methanol futures have rebounded in spot prices. Among them, the spot price in East China rose to 1,990 CNY/ton, up 80 CNY/ton from the end of last month, and the main futures contract rose to around 2,010 CNY/ton in 2001, up 80 CNY/ton from the end of last month.

Inland demand is steadily increasing

In the early stage, many sets of methanol plants in the inland areas were overhauled. Among them, six sets of 4 million tons of units were overhauled in Shaanxi, Gansu, Shanxi, and Inner Mongolia, which caused a shortage of supplies in the Northwest. At the same time, the natural gas methanol plant in the Southwest was unexpectedly overhauled last week. Three new 1.6-million-ton methanol units were shut down. The balance of supply and demand in inland areas was quickly broken, and the market showed a short supply in short supply.

The downstream demand in the Mainland is relatively strong. In addition to the stable downstream demand, the 300,000-ton/year methanol-to-olefins plant in western Shandong was successfully commissioned last week. While stopping the export of methanol, the daily purchase volume was 300-400 tons. Rapid market demand in Shandong has driven the overall price higher.

Port inventory drops rapidly

In the early stage, the port area has maintained normal inventory of 1.2 million to 1.3 million tons. However, in the last week, the inventory in the port area has dropped sharply by about 150,000 tons. In addition, the inventory in the previous few weeks has reduced in the port area to around 900,000 tons. Inventory has fallen to a reasonable level.

The decline in inventory in the port area is partly due to the recent closure of the Yangtze River in the fog, which has slowed the unloading of some cargoes. On the other hand, due to the rapid contraction of supplies in the northwest and southwest, and the low spot prices in the port area, Shandong, Jiangxi, Hunan, and Hubei regions all began to accept imported methanol, causing rapid declines in inventories in port areas.