1、 Price trend

The price of pure benzene stopped rising this week and turned to fall. On July 4, the price of pure benzene was 8653-8800 yuan / ton (average price: 8770 yuan / ton). On Sunday (July 11), the price of pure benzene was 8400-8750 yuan / ton (average price: 8630 yuan / ton). Compared with last week, the average price of pure benzene was 140 yuan / ton, down 1.6%; Compared with the same period last year, it increased by 173.97%.

2、 Analysis and comment

Internationally, the international oil price continued to decline this week, while the price of pure benzene in Asia fell. Domestic, this week, East China port inventory continued to decline, pure benzene spot market remains tight supply. Sinopec’s listed price of pure benzene was stable at 8750 yuan / ton within the week, providing certain support to the market. In terms of demand, most of the downstream products are at a loss, and they have strong resistance to high price pure benzene, and the enterprises generally ship.

In terms of external market, the reference price of pure benzene in South Korea market on Friday (July 9) was US $1025 / T, down US $31 / T or 2.94% on July 2; The import reference price of East China was US $1054 / T, down by US $21 / T or 1.94% on July 2.

In terms of crude oil, the OPEC + meeting was cancelled at the beginning of the week, and there was no plan to further increase production for the time being, and international oil prices rose. However, the market is worried that the excessively fast rising oil price will trigger a price war again, and the crude oil market will cool down rapidly. On July 2, Brent fell 0.62 USD / barrel, or 0.81%; WTI fell 0.6 USD / barrel, or 0.8%.

Downstream: styrene: this week, the price of styrene fluctuated. On July 9, the price of sample enterprises was 9500 yuan / ton, up 2.56% from last week and 74.85% from the same period last year. Crude oil recovered, pure benzene dropped slightly, ethylene remained stable, and styrene cost remained unchanged. The restart and maintenance of styrene plant are mutual, but the new production is delayed, and the output increase is less than expected.

Aniline: this week, aniline was weak. Jinling aniline plant is restarted and will be delivered soon; Wanhua chemical’s new aniline plant entered the market, the later supply is expected to increase significantly, and the market is bearish in the later stage. The price in Shandong is 10000-10200 yuan / ton; The price of aniline in Nanjing is 10200-10400 yuan / ton.

3、 Future forecast

In terms of crude oil, pay attention to OPEC +’s latest decision on increasing production, the impact of US crude oil and refined oil inventories, and US dollar exchange rate on oil prices.

Downstream: downstream main product styrene: short-term styrene cost support is strong, supply increment is less than expected, short-term styrene market is still in a strong shock stage.

Short term supply will continue tight pattern, but the downstream market is difficult to break through in the short term, it is expected that the pure benzene market will be frozen next week. Continue to pay attention to the downstream market, profit margin, domestic and foreign trends of pure benzene plant, crude oil, external market and other trends on the price of pure benzene.